Latif now more ‘wanted’ than beforen Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

and Rafe Sadnan Adel

Sacked minister Latif Siddique’s sud-den homecoming from Kolkata and immediate disappearance on Sunday night gave rise to daylong drama and confusions yesterday.

Until last night, police said they could not trace Latif, who has arrest warrants in several cases for hurting religious sentiments.

State Minister for Home Asaduz-zaman Khan Kamal said Latif could not be arrested without the speaker’s per-mission because a session of the Jatiya Sangsad was going on and he was still an incumbent lawmaker.

But hours later, JS Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury said her permis-sion was not needed for arresting the former minister. She said her permis-sion was required only if Latif, who had

lost his portfolio and Awami League membership but was still an MP, had to be arrested at the parliament premises.

Latif’s lawyer Nurul Islam Sujon’s u-turn regarding his client’s wherea-bouts also contributed to the deepen-ing confusion.

Yesterday morning, Sujon reported-ly said his client had went to the High Court to seek anticipatory bail. Imme-diately, some of the television channels put that up as a breaking news.

However, as dozens of journalists rushed to the court premises within an hour or so, Sujon took a complete u-turn and claimed: “Nobody named Latif Sid-dique has contacted me. Nobody has contacted me even on his behalf. I never said he had come to the court.”

Many journalists, who waited until the end of the day at the court premis-es, did not get to see the former minis-ter either.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam con� rmed that the state had not re-ceived any bail prayer.

Many common people also gathered in front of the Annex building of the HC to show their anger at Latif. Several pro-BNP-Jamaat lawyers brought out a procession at the court premises de-manding immediate arrest.Meanwhile, Supreme Court lawyer Eu-nus Ali Akond � led a public interest lit-igation with the High Court yesterday seeking the court’s directive in arrest-ing Latif in 24 hours.

Earlier yesterday, a Dhaka court di-rected the OC of the capital’s Ramna police station to arrest Latif in connec-tion with a case � led for hurting reli-gious sentiments. Metropolitan Mag-istrate Md Atiquer Rahman passed the order following a petition � led by com-plainant Abed Raja, a pro-BNP lawyer.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

Agrahayan 11, 1421Safar 1, 1436Regd No DA 6238Vol 2, No 231

2 | NewsResponding to RAB’s claim about the arrest of Rajshahi University teacher AKM Sha� ul Islam killing mastermind, Rajshahi Metropolitan Po-lice Commissioner Md Shamsuddin yesterday said it would be considered a new clue in the probe.

3 | NewsIn Bangladesh only 31% of children have birth registration certi� cates, the lowest compared to other Asian countries, reveals a study.

15 | EntertainmentThe man may have left the world but the lega-cy he left behind is eternal. Humayun Ahmed, one of the greatest icons of Bangla literature, is no more but his creation is still prevalent.

9 | World China has begun generating electricity from Tibet’s biggest ever hydropower project, the latest dam development on Himalayan rivers that prompted concern in neighbouring India.

4 | NewsA platform consisting of the government, civil society and the private sector is badly need-ed to ensure sustainable development of the readymade garment sector.

5 | NewsThe automatic countdown timers introduced lately in the capital are not producing the result they were meant for as tra� c police still con-tinue to manoeuvre tra� c on roads manually.

20 pages | Price: Tk12

WHAT’S YOUR IDENTITY?

7 | LONG FORM

BANGLADESH SET TO BUY MOREIBRD STAKES

B1 | BUSINESS

TIGERS REST AL AMIN AS TEAMS REACH DHAKA

12 | SPORT

I N S I D E

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS

11 | OP-ED

Killing of 33 villagers in Tanmandaiyl Death

Abduction, murder of Abdul Khaleque Life

Abduction, torture of Ashuranjan; capturing Hindu temple

Acquitted

Abduction, torture of Khadem Hossain KhanAbduction, torture of Abdul Malek

VERDICTS FOR MOBARAK

A policeman, who is supposed to prevent pedestrians from jaywalking, appears to be helping two girls cross over a divider on a busy road in the Sahnir Akhra area in the capital yesterday. More photos on Page 3 MEHEDI HASAN

SC clears way for Khaleda trial on graft chargesn Tribune Report

The Supreme Court yesterday dis-missed BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s two leave-to-appeal petitions, clearing the way for continuing trial proceedings in Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case.

The � ve-member Appellate Division bench, led by Chief Justice Md. Mo-zammel Hossain, passed the orders.

Khaleda � led one appeal with the apex court in 2011 challening a High Court order that had validated the ac-ceptance of charges against her by a lower court in the case and another on July 26 last year challenging another High Court verdict that also approved her indictment in the same case.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters that after the SC order, there remained no bar to continuing trial proceedings in the case.

Khaleda’s counsel Joynul Abedin told reporters: “The case was � led for politically undermining the Zia family. We will take next steps about this fol-lowing Khaleda Zia’s instructions.”

Khaleda has yet another appeal � led with the apex court against a High Court order that upheld a lower court’s charge

framing order against her in Zia Charita-ble Trust corruption case. The order on the appeal is to be delivered today.

On August 8, 2011, the Anti-Corrrup-tion Commission � led the Zia Charita-ble Trust graft case with Tejgaon police station accusing four people, including Khaleda Zia, for abusing power in rais-ing funds for the trust from unknown sources.

The ACC � led the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case on July 3, 2008 accusing Khaleda, her elder son Tarique Rah-man and four others for misappropri-ating over Tk2.10 crore, which came as grants from a foreign bank for orphans.

The Dhaka Special Court 3 was sup-posed to record prosecution witness-es’s statements yesterday in the cases but the court � xed December 1 for it in response to two separate time-peti-tions � led by the defence counsel. l

PM: Bring SUST brawlers to bookn Our Correspondent, Sylhet

The prime minister has demanded the immediate arrest of participants in a vi-olent clash at Shahjalal University and Science and Technology (SUST) that caused the university to be closed in-de� nitely.

A bitter internecine battle between factions of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the ruling party’s stu-dent body, left one dead and over twen-ty injured on Thursday.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said: “Those who create anarchy on cam-pus, regardless of who they are, must be brought to book. If they had been arrested instantly, without concern for who they were, this criminality could have been brought under control.”

The prime minister issued the direc-tive during a video conference with the Sylhet metropolitan police commis-sioner yesterday.

When contacted, Sylhet Metropol-itan Police (SMP) Commissioner Md Kamrul Ahsan told the Dhaka Tribune: “I apprised her of the latest develop-ments in the incident that 31 Chhatra League activists had been arrested and four cases � led.”

PAGE 2 COLUMN 6

JS debate overLatif’s arrestn Muhammad Zahidul Islam

The parliament session yesterday was fraught with tension over sacked min-ister Abdul Latif Siddique as senior op-position leaders and independent law-makers demanded his dismissal as MP and immediate arrest.

Latif Siddique had made derogatory comments on Hajj, Ijtema and the PM’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy at a discussion in the USA on September 28.

He was later dropped from the cabi-net. The ruling Awami League also can-celled his party membership.

Jatiya Party Secretary General Ziau-ddin Ahmed Bablu initiated the debate on a point of order regarding Latif Sid-dique’s statements, demanding his im-mediate arrest.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

Murder motive woman denies knowing victimRAB leaves it to police to probe other motives for Sha� ul murder n Mohammad Jamil Khan from

Rajshahi and Ashif Islam Shaon in Dhaka

The woman, whose husband RAB said killed Rajshahi University (RU) profes-sor Sha� ul Islam Lilon for abusing her, claims never to have known or worked with the teacher.

The Rapid Action Battalion’s theo-ry about the motive behind the Sha� ul slaying seems undermined by recent statements made by the woman in ques-tion and by the comments of co-workers at the university.

“I used to deal with class three and four associate and general sta� at Ra-

jshahi University. I never dealt with teachers’ issues, so how would I come to know Professor AKM Sha� ul Islam?” Nasrin Akther Reshma, o� cer of the � nance and accounts section, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

Reshma, wife of RAB’s prime suspect Abdus Samad Pintu, is at the centre of the Rapid Action Battalion’s (RAB) theory about the motive behind Sha� ul’s murder.

She went into hiding soon after the arrest of her husband and police have been searching for her since.

Pintu, former vice president of the RU unit of Chhatra Dal and now a leader of the BNP’s youth front, wanted the soci-ology department professor killed be-cause he allegedly “misbehaved” with

his wife, the RAB theory goes. RAB made the statement at a media

brie� ng at its headquarters on Sunday af-ter arresting six suspects including Pintu.

RAB said the arrestees confessed that Pintu was the mastermind behind the murder and the other � ve carried out the killing.

But Reshma, speaking to this corre-spondent from her place of hiding, said she came to know about Sha� ul only af-ter media reported on his death. Her al-leged connection to him was a mystery to her, she said.

RAB Legal and Media Wing Director Commander Mufti Mahmud Khan told the Dhaka Tribune last night: “We arrested the perpetrators of the murder and they confessed to us. That is what we shared with the public at our press conference.

“There may be other motives for the murder which may come to light in fur-ther investigations, but RAB will not in-vestigate. If there are other motives, the police can � nd them,” he said.

“The case will got to court accord-ing to the law. An investigation o� cer will be appointed, and he may continue the investigation if he sees � t,” Mufti Mahmud added.

When asked whether Nasrin Akhter Reshma, the wife of RAB’s prime suspect, had been made an accused in the case, the RAB media director said he could not say without checking the case � le.

On November 15, unidenti� ed assail-ants killed Sha� ul Islam Lilon while he was returning home from the RU campus.

The Dhaka Tribune reporter visited the � nance and accounts section of RU to inquire into allegations of an a� air or of abuse involving Sha� ul and Resh-ma. None of the sta� said they had ever heard of such a thing.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

Mobarak to hang for 33 murdersn Tanim Ahmed and Ahmed Zayeef

It must have been a muggy day on Au-gust 22 at Akhaura in 1971. The war was in full swing and the freedom � ghters had a formidable presence along the other side of the border in India. The rolling hills of the area were witness to heavy battles during those months.

The village of Tanmandayl, close to the border, was most likely within the Muktibahini artillery range too. Locally known as a collaborator, razakar Mo-

barak Hossain and several accomplices called a meeting that afternoon at the house of one Noor Baksh.

The 130 odd villagers who gath-ered had little idea what was in store for them. It was all pre-planned, they found out later. The Pakistani Army surrounded them as they gathered at the appointed spot and took them away to the nearby army camp at the bank of Gangasagar lake by boats.

Mobarak and his accomplices swung into action there. They asked the vil-

lagers if any of their relatives had gone to join the Liberation War. The collab-orators selected 26 from Tanmandayl and seven from a neighbouring village. These 33 were detained at a local jail-house overnight, while the rest were kept at the camp.

The 33 were taken out the next day and taken back to Gangasagar bank. The razakars and the Pakistani Army personnel made them dig a ditch. Those villagers were then executed

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Reshma says from hide-out that she came to know about Sha� ul only after media reported on his death

An order on another appeal in the Zia Charitable Trust caseis expected today

L E A P O F T H E L A W

News2 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, November 25, 2014

JS debate over Latif’s arrest PAGE 1 COLUMN 6Two independent members also took part in the discussion with a senior treasury bench member, Suranjit Sen-gupta.

Bablu said: “He [Siddique] irritated the fundamentalists by returning to the country after making derogatory com-ments on Hajj and Ijtema.”

A right-wing platform, Hefazat-e-Is-lam has already threatened country-wide general strike if the former post, telecoms and ICT minister is not arrest-ed by tomorrow. The Chittagong-based Islamist out� t will stage demonstra-tions across the country today.

Another organisation Islami An-dolan Bangladesh issued an ulti-matum yesterday, demanding Sid-dique’s arrest for hurting religioussentiments.

Taking part in the discussion, Sur-anjit’s clari� cation in parliament ended the debate about Siddique’s parliament membership who has been charged in 22 cases for hurting religious senti-ment, and his arrest.

While delivering his speech in an unscheduled debate, Suranjit said the law enforcement agencies did not re-quire prior permission of the speaker to arrest an MP when the House was in session.

Earlier, the speaker had said as much. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury said, “There is no legal bar in arresting for-mer minister Abdul Latif Siddique.”

She told reporters in her o� ce: “There is no bar to arrest any MP from anywhere except the parliament parlia-ment premises.”

In this case, there is no need for pri-or permission of the speaker of the par-liament, she said.

SM Abul Kamal Azad, the lone mem-ber from the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Front, di� ered and said the speaker’s permission was obligatory to arrest Siddique.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was not present during the discussion.

“The rule 174 of the Rules of Pro-cedure stipulates that the Speaker’s prior permission is a must for arrest of an MP from the premises of the Jatiya Sangsad. Outside, the law en-forcers are free to arrest anyone,” saidSuranjit.

He said the law enforcers were un-der obligation to inform the speak-er as soon as they arrest an MP. And the Speaker would then inform theHouse.

Suranjit said the constitution had not authorised the speaker to strip any MP of membership, referring that the charter had clearly charted out the conditions for which an MP would lose membership.

Independent MPs, Hazi Moham-mad Selim and Rustum Ali Farazi, also spoke in the unscheduled discussion, demanding immediate arrest of Sid-dique. l

Mobarak to hang for 33 deaths PAGE 1 COLUMN 4and buried there. The rest were even-tually released, but only after torture.

That Mobarak Hossain was sen-tenced to death yesterday. The war crimes tribunal of Bangladesh found him guilty for killing those 33 unarmed civilians during the war.

Also known as Mobarak Ali, he was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the murder of one Abdul Khaleque, whose daughter had lodged the � rst complaint against Mobarak in 2009. He was acquitted in three other charges.

It is the 13th case in which the two war tribunals have delivered judge-ment so far.

The � ve charges on which Mobarak was indicted on April 13 last year in-clude abduction, con� nement and tor-ture. The case was kept for verdict on June 2 this year.

During the trial, 12 prosecution witnesses testi� ed against Mobarak whereas the accused himself and his eldest son Asad Uddin gave depositions as defence witnesses.

The 64-year-old rose to the rank of Rokon, full member, of Jamaat-e-Is-lami after the war. He later joined the Awami League but was expelled in 2012 as the organising secretary of Mogra union unit under Akhaura upazila.

In his testimony on December 15 last year, Mobarak said he had not acted against the country’s independence. He claimed that he still held the post of organising secretary. “My membership has not been cancelled yet. I was never sacked from the party,” he said.

While the prosecutors yesterday were “satis� ed,” Mobarak’s defence lawyers said they would appeal against the verdict since the tribunal had

“failed to analyse the evidence.”Gonojagoron Moncho, a platform of

activists demanding the highest pun-ishment for war criminals, welcoming the verdict brought out a procession at Shahbagh. Sector Commanders Forum, a platform of freedom � ghters who led the 1971 Liberation War, urged a swift execution of the sentence.

Mobarak’s home district Brahman-baria saw a procession come out on the streets cheering the verdict.

The International Crimes Tribunal 1 in its verdict said: “We have taken due notice of the intrinsic gravity of the said o� ences of crimes against human-ity which are particularly shocking to the conscience of mankind.”

The tribunal began reading out the 92-page verdict soon after it convened at 11:15am amid a comparatively re-laxed atmosphere. Security in and

around the tribunal was visibly low compared to other judgement days as was the turnout of observers, activists and lawyers.

Considering the “gravity and magni-tude of the o� ences...we unanimous-ly hold that the accused deserves the highest punishment...,” Justice Enaye-tur said.

The three judges took turns in read-ing out the judgement as customary at both the war crimes tribunals. Justice Jahangir Hossain read from the verdict: “We are convinced from the evidence both oral and documentary led by the prosecution that accused Mobarak Hossain was a potential member of Razakar Bahini [force].”

Razakar, besides al-Badr and al-Shams, was a vigilante militia group mostly manned by members and sup-porters of Jamaat-e-Islami and other

right wing parties that favoured Pa-kistan over Bangladesh. The Razakar units were notorious for abetting the Pakistani occupation forces across Bangladesh during the Liberation War.

The term “razakar” has since be-come synonymous with “collaborator” in Bengali.

Prosecutor Sahidur Rahman, who had conducted the case, said he was satis� ed with the verdict. Asked about the acquittal in three charges, he said: “We proved that Mobarak was indeed a razakar. We are satis� ed.”

Sahidur, most of whose cases – Bachchu Razakar, Chowdhury Mueen Uddin and Ashrafuzzaman Khan – have been tried in absentia, also noted that Mobarak had been found guilty and sentenced to death.

Mobarak’s counsel Tajul Islam said: “We believe that the tribunal has failed

to analyse the evidence presented be-fore it.”

Tajul and his younger brother Tari-qul Islam, who represent Mobarak, are also on the defence teams of the top Ja-maat leadership accused of war crimes.

He said the prosecution witness-es had contradicted each other. “His crimes were not such that he deserves the death penalty.” Tajul said the de-fence would appeal this judgement.

Barely 10 minutes away from the tribunal premises, activists of Gono-jagoron Moncho welcomed the death penalty with cheers.

Speaking to reporters at the Shah-bagh intersection, its spokesperson Imran H Sarker said: “There was an uncertainty that the verdict might be in� uenced as Mobarak had joined the ruling party after the LiberationWar.” l

Latif now more ‘wanted’ than before PAGE 1 COLUMN 5Including this one, Latif has a total of seven cases � led against him with the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) of Dhaka and several other cas-es with other courts in di� erent parts of the country. Most of those courts have issued arrest warrants against the for-mer minister after he had not appeared despite summons.

Since Latif made derogatory re-marks on Hajj, Ijtema and PM’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy at a programme in the USA on September 28, radical Is-lamist groups such as Hefazat-e-Islam and other political parties have been demanding that the government brings him back to the country and puts him on trial.

Yesterday, Hefazat and another Is-lamist party Islami Oikyo Jote called a nationwide strike for Thursday if he was not arrested by tommrrow.

The Nationalist Democratic Front (NDF), an alliance formed recently by some unknown dissidents of the BNP-Jamaat-led 20-party combine, went a step further, threatening to enforce hartal today unless Latif was arrested by last night.

Other Islamist units such as the Is-lami Andolon Bangladesh and Khelafat Mojlish staged protests in Dhaka and Chittagong and threatened to wage tough movement in the same demand.

Latif’s former party colleagues from his hometown Tangail also demanded his immediate arrest and trial. Tangail

district Awami League brought out a procession yesterday in the town.

However, their reaction had been mixed; while some would welcome him if he regained his position in the party, others said the matter should be left to the party high command.

Alamgir Khan, president of Tangail district unit Awami League, said: “It is up to the prime minister...We will wel-come whatever decision she makes.”

Sirajul Haque Alamgir, president of Tangail city unit Awami League, said: “We believe that Mr Siddique will re-turn to his post by virtue of his compe-tency. People of Tangail will certainly welcome him.”

Suranjit Sengupta, advisory council member of the Awami League, said: “He was declared unwanted. If he has visa then he can return to the country even if there is arrest warrant against him. Everyone has the right to get jus-tice. The government and the party have done everything required. Now we will have to wait and see what the court does. The government will not give any dictation in this regard.”

The veteran Awami League leader also said: “There is nothing to be wor-ried about Latif Siddique. Law will fol-low its own course and nothing unto-ward will happen.”

However, BNP acting secretary gen-eral Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said Siddique had not been arrested be-cause he had the government’s bless-ings.

“It has become clear that the gov-ernment strongly supports Siddique’s return to Dhaka. If that was not the case then he would not have been al-lowed to leave the airport. Why was he not arrested there?” Fakhrul inquired.

HM Ershad, chief of main opposition in parliament Jatiya Party and also a special envoy to the PM, said in a press release yesterday that his party would launch a movement if Latif was not ar-rested immediately.

He said: “It is not understandable how Latif Siddique got out from the airport although there are arrest war-rants against him. Is he above law? We strongly condemn the government’s role.”

Latif had been living in the USA, UK and lastly in India’s Kolkata since he made the derogatory remarks and was subsequently sacked from the cabinet and party. In a sudden move, former Awami League presidium member Latif returned to Dhaka around 8:40pm on Sunday.

Upon his arrival at the Dhaka air-port’s VIP lounge he was kept under surveillance of immigration police. Later, police let him go around 9:30pm.

A number of witnesses said after his arrival at the airport Latif stayed around an hour in the VIP lounge, and then left with help from law enforcers.

Even the journalists, many of whom thronged the airport with cameras, could not notice when and how Latif actually left. l

PM: Bring SUST PAGE 1 COLUMN 1He said: “You have heard what the prime minister had said. It was her di-rection to us, nothing else.”

The Sylhet divisional commission-er, who arranged the programme at his conference hall, also spoke.

Deputy Inspector General of Police in Sylhet Md Mizanur Rahman and oth-er high o� cials were also present.

A police o� cial, on condition of an-onymity, said a “zero tolerance” poli-cy had been taken regarding the SUST clash. Police were working hard to ar-rest the culprits.

One university student was killed and 20 injured during a gun� ght on Thursday between two BCL factions of SUST in a turf war over establishing su-premacy on campus.

The same night, police picked up 31 BCL activists from di� erent areas of Sylhet city. Students who witnessed the gun� ght said followers of SUST BCL unit president, who has long been absent from the campus, entered the university around 10:30am.

They vandalised the library, academ-ic buildings, and the Shah Paran Hall.

The clash erupted as students loyal to Anjan Roy, the vice president, ar-rived at the scene.

The two factions opened � re on each other and detonated handmade bombs, leaving at least 20 injured.

Following the death of a student, the authorities closed the university inde� nitely. l

RMP commissioner: RAB arrests just a fresh clue n Mohammad Jamil Khan and

Sourav Habib, from Rajshahi

Responding to RAB’s claim about the arrest of Rajshahi University teacher AKM Sha� ul Islam killing mastermind, Rajshahi Metropolitan Police Commis-sioner Md Shamsuddin yesterday said it would be considered a new clue in the probe.

“We are not neglecting the RAB statement. We see it as a fresh clue in the entire investigation,” he said.

The RMP commissioner said all the arrestees would be interrogated more thoroughly as more evidence is what the police are trying to gather, said Shamsuddin while addressing a brief-ing at RMP headquarters.

RAB on Sunday arrested six people and claimed that one of them had mas-terminded the killing of Sha� ul.

“Since the beginning of the probe, police have focused on Sha� ul’s per-sonal, professional and social life as well as the possible involvement of any militant out� t in the killing. Those ar-rested by RAB can be considered sus-pected killers as we are yet to have any details,” said Shamsuddin.

“Based on information of two wit-nesses, police have recovered two dresses worn by the killers. Among the six arrestees of Bogra is a machete maker named Sadhon Karmakar,”he said.

The police o� cial said law enforc-ers were trying to piece together all the clues found so far to � nd out the killers.

Two men named Shariful Islam and Raihan have been detained in connec-tion with creating the Facebook page “Ansar Al Islam Bangladesh 2” and Shamsuddin said both of them are

closely involved with the politics of Ja-maat-Shibir.

“We are also trying to � nd out whether the two have any connection with three previous arrestees - Sagor, Jinnah and Arif – who also belong to Ja-maat-Shibir,” he said.

Meanwhile, after the end of the � rst phase of remand, eight arrestees out of the 11 were remanded for onemore day.

Chhatra Dal units of Rajshahi city and Rajshahi University jointly organ-ised a brie� ng at the city BNP o� ce yesterday evening and demanded fair probe into the case.

Police are also interrogating the for-mer boyfriend of a girl, who was res-cued from the house of the slain pro-fessor on the day of the incident. The man named Jahangir Hossain works at a private bank in Shirajganj. l

Mobarak, a Jamaati expelled from AL n Tribune Report

Mobarak Hossain who has been sen-tenced to death for war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War in Brahman-baria was a posted leader of the Awami League for 16 years. Before that he was a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, labelled as a criminal organisation for its role dur-ing the war.

According to the verdict delivered yesterday Mobarak was born on Janu-ary 10, 1950 at Nayadil village of Brah-manbaria. He studied up to grade VIII. His profession is business but he is known as a collaborator in his locality.

“During the Liberation War he was a member of Razakar Bahini and asso-ciated with the politics of Jamaat-e-Is-lami. After the liberation, he became a Rokon of Jamaat-e-Islami at union pari-shad level and eventually joined the politics of Bangladesh Awami League.”

Md Nowab Mia, president of Awami League’s Mogra union unit in Akhau-

ra of Brahmanbaria, yesterday told the Dhaka Tribune: “Mobarak became the organising secretary of the unit in 1996. He held the post until 2012 when he was expelled from the party as we came to know about his involvement with war crimes during the war.”

But Mobarak claimed in testimony that he still held the post. “My member-ship has not been cancelled yet. I was never sacked from the party,” he said.

Lawyers who represent Jamaat lead-ers also stood for Mobarak. After the verdict, they said the defence would ap-peal against the sentence as the tribunal had “failed to analyse the evidence.”

Our Brahmanbaria correspondent said local people and freedom � ghters brought out a procession after the ver-dict. Some also distributed sweets.

First prosecution witness and free-dom � ghter Darul Islam said: “We are very happy with the verdict. The peo-ple of Akhaura will be free from dis-grace through his execution.” l

Indian National Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi praises Bangladesh’s progress in countering terrorism and militancy while talking to an AL lawmaker Mohammad Faruk Khan-led delegation at his New Delhi residence yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

Murder motive woman denies knowing victim PAGE 1 COLUMN 2

According to Pintu’s family and uni-versity sources, Reshma and Pintu were married 13 years ago. Her father, Sham-sul Alam, is a guard of the physical edu-cation department of RU.

They live at a house beside the grave-yard in the Dasmari neighbourhood of the Dharampur area of Rajshahi city together with their eight-year-old son, sources said.

Deputy Director of Accounts of RU Abdullah Al Ansari, under whose juris-diction Reshma worked for the last sev-en years, told the Dhaka Tribune yester-day he had never seen Reshma and any university teacher interacting.

“Reshma works with universi-ty workers. She has no business with teachers, so why would a teacher meet and talk with her?” Ansari asked.

Ansari, who sits just beside Reshma at work, said she had not even complained to him about her recent troubles.

The Dhaka Tribune also visited the sociology department to ask department members and sta� what they thought of the recent claims.

Professor Dr Wardatul Akmam, chair-person of the department, said it was up

to law enforcers to frame the case. She said it would not be right to talk about it, when asked about RAB’s theory of the motive for the murder.

The chairperson said the sociology department was like one big family and to the best of her knowledge, nobody had ever threatened Sha� ul at his o� ce in the department.

Reshma’s uncle hints Pintu was framed When asked why law enforcers had ar-rested Pintu if he was not involved in Sha� ul’s murder, one of Reshma’s uncles, a local Awami League leader, hinted that Pintu was framed over a land dispute.

Md Rabbel Hossain, uncle of Reshma and president of ward 30 of Rajshahi city Awami League (AL), said his nephew-in-law Pintu, his younger brother Alauddin, and Mahfuz and Yeasin Mollah bought 37 kathas of land a year ago, just east of Dasmari graveyard.

Rabbel said they paid taxes on the land for the last nine months, but some months ago, AL leader Salahuddin Raju made false documents and claimed the land as his own.

According to Rabbel, Raju claimed Pin-tu and the others had no right to the land.

Rabbel claims that Raju, who has good relations with law enforcement of-� cers, used his in� uence to frame Pintu as a suspect in the Sha� ul murder case.

“We even spoke with the o� cer-in-charge at Motihar police station regard-ing the land problem and a land survey-or examined the land last Friday. Just a day later, on November 22, RAB went to Pintu’s house and took him away,” Rab-bel said.

Azimul, the land surveyor of Borbhu-mi land department o� ce, told the Dha-ka Tribune that Alauddin had taken him to a plot of land on Friday.

Azimul said Alauddin had some land documents including the letter of the AC Land in his possession, but the docu-ments were incomplete.

“I suggested he write a letter to the commissioner of land mentioning the ex-isting documents, in order to obtain the other necessary documents and establish ownership of the land,” Azimul said.

Police versionAlamgir Hossain, o� cer-in-charge of Motihar police station, said he had heard about a land related problem a month ago but said it was a matter for the land

o� ce. He suggested the disputants set-tle the issue in the courts.

Salahuddin Raju, who identi� ed him-self as businessman of Rajshahi city, told the Dhaka Tribune: “The land in question was � rst bought by my father in 1972, but was not registered properly because he died in 1973.”

“Some people, including Rabbel, have made false documents and are now claiming the land,” he said.

Md Shamsuddin, commissioner of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police, Saunday said police were not happy with the RAB investigation’s claims. He said that misbehaviour with a female employee might be one motive, but other compel-ling aspects of the case had not been suf-� ciently probed.

Police have said from the outset of the investigation that a feud between Sha� ul Islam and his pro-Jamaat col-leagues was a motive behind the killing.

On Sunday, police arrested the man believed to be the author of an Islamist website that claimed responsibility for the killing – Shariful Islam, teacher of Mosta� zur Cadet Madrasa – and a stu-dent of class eight. Both were arrestedin Bogra. l

3NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Government audits reveal irregularities involving Tk6,196crn Adil Sakhawat

Seventeen audit reports covering FY2007-11 revealed irregularities con-cerning approximately Tk6,196cr of public money at di� erent ministries and public sector banks, the nation’s top auditor announced yesterday.

State-owned banks (SOBs) account-ed for the greatest amount of irregulari-ties, by sector, involving Tk3,063cr, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of Bangladesh Masud Ahmed said.

The Bangladesh Telecommunica-tion Regulatory Commission (BTRC) topped the list of single entities, by amount, of public money involved in irregularities.

According to the audit report, BTRC licensing certi� cate irregularities in-volved Tk2,628cr between FY2001-10.

BTRC provided Warid International a licence to enter the telecoms mar-ket without upholding the Bangladesh Telecommunication Act 2010, accord-ing to the report.

Similarly, the regulatory commis-sion did not take action against illegal VOIP businesses, the report added.

The audit reports show that irregu-larities at the SOBs and 22 commercial banks regulated by Bangladesh Bank, most of which have weak internal con-trol systems, involved the approval of loans in violation of Bangladesh Bank

regulations and lending requirements.The CAG urged the approval of the

draft of an audit act which had been proposed to the government two years ago.

He said: “Audit activities are still being conducted according to the reg-ulations laid down by the Enam Com-mittee in 1983.”

Comptroller and Auditor General Masud was speaking at the � rst ever presentation of audit reports at a press conference at the CAG o� ce in the cap-ital’s Kakrail area.

The o� ce of the CAG submitted the audit reports to the president in June this year. They were presented to par-liament in September.

At the press brie� ng, the CAG said the audit of the income and expen-diture of Tk134,907cr of the revenue budget, and Tk65,145cr � xed for the development budget in FY2013-14, had already been completed.

The CAG, when asked about trans-parency during audits, replied that “zero tolerance” is shown towards al-legations of impropriety and that such cases are dealt with according to bu-reaucratic procedures.

He referred to a recent incident of bribe-taking by auditors from a bank during an audit in Naryanganj in March this year. The o� ce of the CAG had tak-en action against them, he said. l

Tribunal slams television stationsn Tribune Report

The International Crimes Tribunal 1 yesterday expressed strong reserva-tions about journalistic practices of the television stations.

On Sunday, the tribunal put Mo-barak Hossain’s case on its list of cases to be dealt with as the particular item was awaiting verdict. Mobarak’s case only stated “for order” next to it.

A number of television channels put it on their tickers and � ashed “breaking news” saying that the tribunal would give its verdict on Mobarak Hossain yesterday.

In the beginning of the proceedings, tribunal Chairman Justice Enayetur Rahim said: “Some may have extraor-dinary powers of perception and know beforehand what the order is going to be. But it would be desirable that the media reports the exact state of a� airs at the tribunal.”

He said such reporting, even before the tribunal had given the order, un-dermined the proceedings.

Justice Enayetur urged journalists to be more “responsible” in reporting the proceedings.

Justice Jahangir Hossain, a co-judge at the tribunal, said: “What if we gave an order saying we would give the judgement on the 30th instead of to-day? What would happen then?”

The tribunal chairman said he did not want to dwell on the matter further and moved on to deliver the judgement. l

Top RSO leaders, Pakistani national remandedn Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong

The law enforcers have found that an internal feud amongst Global Rohingya Centre (GRC), its sister concern Arakan Rohingya Union (ARU) and Myanmar sectarian out� t Rohingya Solidarity Or-ganisation (RSO) resulted in the arrest of � ve of their top leaders and activists in Chittagong City on Sunday.

Concrete reason behind the dispute is yet unknown, but police suspect that it might have been caused due to feud over � nancial issues, sources in the Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) said.

Police said they would be clear about the intention of the � ve after an in-depth investigation.

Meanwhile, a Chittagong court yes-terday granted police � ve-day remand for the two RSO top leaders, a Pakistani national who is also the GRC vice-pres-ident and two others.

Fifth Metropolitan Magistrate Ahmed Sayeed passed the order in the afternoon when the � ve arrestees were produced before the court. Police sought 15-day remand under section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The � ve were produced before the court after initial interrogation.

CMP’s Detective Branch (DB) nabbed RSO top leaders Salamatullah and Sha� ullah, also an Awami League leader from Naikkhyangchhari in Ban-darban; Pakistani national Mohammad

Alam; Saudi Arabia expatriate Abdul Majid, who is a Rohingya of Ukhiya up-azila in Cox’s Bazar; and Hefazat-e-Is-lam madrasa’s teacher Mohammad Amin.

They were detained from three rooms of Hotel Lords Inn around 1pm on suspicion of connection with mil-itant activities. Later, they were inter-rogated by a Joint Interrogation Cell of the CMP at the DB o� ce, DB Additional Deputy Commissioner Hasan Chowd-hury said.

During interrogation, police found some sensitive information, DB Depu-ty Commissioner Kushum Dewan, who led the interrogation team, said. The o� cial did not disclose the information for the sake of investigation.

“They did not give any concrete information while also providing mis-leading information. So we sought their remand,” he said; adding that the law enforcers were verifying identities of the detainees.

On the matter, no CMP o� cial said anything on record mentioning that the incident was a serious matter for national security.

However, several high o� cials of the CMP, seeking anonymity, told the Dhaka Tribune that the RSO’s Bangla-desh wing might have broken into sev-eral factions.

“We heard that two Saudi nationals funded for the GRC while the � ve gath-ered in the hotel on Saturday night to

distribute the money. It was supposed to be donated for mosques, madrasas and other facilities for Rohingyas. They thought that their rival factions might inform the detectives fearing to be de-prived of the fund,” an o� cial said ask-ing not to be named.

Sha� ullah contested in the last up-azila parishad election with the ruling party’s support at Naikkhyangchhari. He is the human resource a� airs secre-tary of the upazila unit Awami League. He works for a faction of the RSO.

Local sources said his father Saleh Ahmed had also been involved with RSO-related activities in the past.

Salamat is locally known as a chief organiser of the RSO in Cox’s Bazar.

Majid confessed to police that his parents were of Rohingya origin. His passport showed that he was born in Makkah of Saudi Arabia. He visited Thailand, India, Qatar, Bahrain and Turkey in the last one year.

Mohammad Alam, son of one Md Yasin of Karachi, runs the Nether-lands-based GRC.

According to his passport, he arrived in Dhaka on Friday from Jeddah. He earlier came to Bangladesh on March 20 and left after four days. On both oc-casions, he collected Bangladeshi visa from Jeddah.

CMP Additional Commissioner (crime and operation) Banaz Kumar Majumder said everything would be clear after the interrogation ended. l

31% child births registered in Bangladeshn Tribune Report

In Bangladesh only 31% of children have birth registration certi� cates, the lowest compared to other Asian coun-tries, reveals a study.

Conducted by the World Vision, the study says more than 135 million chil-dren aged below � ve in Asia do not have birth certi� cates at all. Besides, nearly two out of every three births are not registered in Asia.

Only three Asian countries – Japan, Thailand and South Korea – register ev-ery single child while 41% children are registered in India, 72% in Myanmar and 42% in Nepal.

The percentage of birth registra-tion was found to be over 90% in three countries – Vietnam (95%), Sri Lanka (97%) and Mongolia (99%).

Ministers from more than 40 coun-tries in the region are scheduled to ink an agreement on acquiring birth certi� cates at the Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics. The � ve-day conference that started in Bangkok yesterday will end on November 28.

Chief Executive of World Vision Australia Tim Costello said an estimat-ed 250 to 500 million people around the world remain legally invisible due to a lack of documentation.

“This is also a key reason why too many people do not have their names on the list of many essential govern-ment services, including education, health and protection. We envision a universal, free and legal identity sys-tem to make sure that all newborns have legal documents proving their identities,” he said.

The study says children without birth certi� cates are less likely to get medical treatment when they are ill, and are also in greater risk of being traf-

� cked and working in unsafe environ-ments.

Usually, children from the poorest households have been found to be less likely to have birth certi� cates, which makes it harder for them to get legal protection and enrol in school.

Advocacy Director of World Vision Bangladesh Chandan Z Gomez told the Dhaka Tribune that the percentage of birth registration in Bangladesh is very low despite the fact that this is neces-sary and mandatory.

“At the conference, Saarc member countries will reach an agreement to digitise birth registration while ensur-ing registration of every children. They will � x a target to accomplish the goal by 2024,” he said.

The Bangladeshi delegation that attended the conference includes Suraiya Begum, secretary of the Statistics and Informatics Division under the Ministry of Planning, Md Nazrul Islam, secretary-in-charge (coordination and reforms) of the Cabinet Division, Golam Mostafa Kamal, director general of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Md Aminul Bar Chowdhury, joint secretary of the Statistics and Informatics Division, Mohammad Mosta� zur Rahman, deputy secretary of the Law d Justice Division under the Ministry of Law, Md Azimuddin Biswas, director of the Prime Minister’s O� ce, AKM Ashraful Haque, director of the MSVSB project under Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, and Md Mohasin Ali, director (operations) of the National Identity Registration Wing under the Election Commission Secretariat. l

The recent announcement that jaywalking is a punishable o� ence seems to have little impact on pedestrians in the capital. A family with baggage and a minor boy, left, dangerously jump over the road divider at Shonir Akhra while students run to cross the road in front of approaching buses although a foot-over bridge lies just behind. The photos were taken yesterday MEHEDI HASAN

Tribunal accepts war crime charges against twon Tribune Report

International Crimes Tribunal 2 yester-day accepted charges against alleged Razakars Mahidur Rahman and Afsar Hossain for crimes committed against humanity during the Liberation War.

The tribunal led by Justice Obaidul Hassan � xed December 1 to begin fur-ther hearing on indictment.

According to the prosecution, Ma-hidur Rahman, 84, of Dadanchak village and Afsar Hossain alias Chutu, 65, of Satrosia village – both supporters of the BNP – were charged with mass killing, ar-son, looting, abduction, torture, con� ne-ment and murder in Chapainawabganj as members of the Razakar force in 1971.

The two were arrested in connection with a criminal case � led with Shibganj police station in the northern district on September 16. Later, they were shown arrested in a war crimes case. l

HC: Purchase accurate formalin kits in 2 monthsn Tribune Report

The High Court yesterday ordered the government to buy accurate formalde-hyde meters, a kit used for detecting formalin levels in food items, within two months.

The court also ordered the authorities concerned to submit a compliance report within three months regarding the steps taken in buying the formalin testing kit.

An HC bench comprising of Justice Salma Masud Chowdhury and Justice Md Khasruzzaman passed the order following a hearing on a writ petition � led by the president and secretary of Fruit Importers Association.

The HC also ordered the health sec-retary, food secretary and home secre-tary to form a committee on selecting an accurate device within seven days and asked to submit a report in this regard.

The expert body has to have repre-

sentatives from Bangladesh Council for Scienti� c and Industrial Research (BC-SIR), Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institute (BSTI) and Directorate of Con-sumers Rights and Food and Nutrition Science department of Dhaka Univer-sity, the order stated. In a separate or-der, the Finance Ministry was asked to allocate necessary funds for buying the formalin testing machine.

The orders came after two govern-ment organisations – BCSIR and BSTI – submitted separate reports stating that the currently used formalin testing de-vice, Formaldehyde Meter Z-300, was not appropriate for testing fruits. The reports were submitted on September 23 and on November 12 by organisations respectively. On July 21, an HC bench of Justice Salma Masud Chowdhury and Justice Md Habibul Gani ordered the government to conduct laboratory tests to clarify the claims of faulty device. l

PM � ies to Nepal today to attend Saarc meetn BSS

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will leave Dhaka today for Kathmandu to attend the 18th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Summit.

The two-day Saarc Summit begins at the City Hall (Rashtriya Sabha Griha), Bhrikuti Mandap in Kathmandu on No-vember 26.

Foreign Ministry sources said a VVIP � ight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines car-

rying the prime minister and members of her entourage is scheduled to depart Shahjalal International Airport at 3pm.

The � ight is expected to land at Tribhuban International Airport in Kath-mandu at 4:15pm (Nepal Standard Time).

Sheikh Hasina is expected to hold meetings with Nepalese Prime Minis-ter Sushil Koirala, Afghan President Dr Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and Maldiv-ian President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom. The prime minister is sched-

uled to return home at 12:05pm on No-vember 28.

Meanwhile, speaking at a press con-ference on Thursday, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said the meeting of eight South Asian nations is expected to ink Saarc Motor Vehicles Agreement for the Regulation of Passenger and Cargo Vehicular Tra� c amongst Saarc member states, Saarc Regional Railways Agree-ment, and Saarc Framework Agreement for Energy Cooperation (Electricity). l

‘An estimated 250 to 500 million people around the world remain legally invisible due to a lack of documentation. This is also a key reason why too many people do not have their names on the list of many essential government services, including education, health and protection’

News4 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, November 25, 2014

TI founder in Dhaka over RMG labour standardsn Tribune Report

A platform consisting of the govern-ment, civil society and the private sec-tor is badly needed to ensure sustain-able development of the readymade garment sector, Peter Eigen, founder chairman of Transparency Internation-al (TI), yesterday said.

Eigen was speaking at the “Meet the Media” programme of the Garment In-dustries Transparency Initiative (GITI), organised by the Transparency Inter-national Bangladesh (TIB) at its o� ce in the capital.

Terming the proposed platform “the magical triangle,” Eigen, who served as TI chairman from 1993 to 2005, said the platform brought together all of the related stakeholders – the government, civil society, buyers, manufacturers and labourers.

The government alone cannot en-sure the proper and sustainable devel-opment of the sector, he said.

Around 4 million female workers are involved in the RMG sector which is considered Bangladesh’s highest ex-port earner.

The collapse of Rana Plaza on April 24, 2012 killed over 1,135 workers and injured at least 2,500.

Calling the incident the result of poor governance, he said GITI had to be formed to avoid such disasters in future.

The TI has begun discussions among stakeholders to form GITI in Bangladesh.

Eigen said the proposed platform initially would be formed in Bangla-desh and Myanmar by next year. Later

Cambodia, Vietnam and other ready-made garment manufacturing coun-tries would be added to GITI.

Iftekharuzzaman, executive direc-tor of TIB, said the founder chairman had been in the country for the last four days to discuss the proposed platform with stakeholders.

Expressing the need for such bodies,

he cited the example of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, formed for the mining industries in Af-rica and other mining countries to de-velop sustainable practices.

The objectives of the proposed GITI are to promote transparency, to create better awareness of violations of labour standards, and to identify potential for

improvement in the national context. GITI aims to promote International

Labour Organisation’s core labour stan-dards that include freedom of associa-tion and the e� ective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, as well as the right to a living wage, humane working hours and a safe and healthy working environment. l

Discontent prevails among leaders over Kushtia AL council n Our Correspondent, Kushtia

Some senior leaders of the ruling Awami League have allegedly been fed up due to not getting invitation to much-awaited Kushtia district unit AL council going to be held today after a gap of ten years.

It was learnt that AL lawmaker Ab-dur Rauf from Kushtia 4 constituency, Daulatpur upazila unit AL President and also former MP Afaz Uddin and district unit AL Senior Vice-President and also Kushtia Sadar Municipality Mayor Anwar Ali were not invited to the programme where AL General Sec-retary and LGRD Minister Sayed Ashra-ful Islam was supposed to attend as the chief guest.

When asked, MP Abdur Rauf ac-knowledged the matter, saying: “Some leaders have been running the party at their will. There are only two MPs in the district from my party. I have not been invited to the council and its con-sequence will not be good.”

When contacted, Afaz Uddin echoed the voice of Rauf, telling that they have made allegation in this regard to the high-ups of the party.

On the contrary, Kushtia unit Gener-al Secretary Asgar Ali denied the mat-ter of not sending invitation card to the aforesaid leaders. l

Societies are less open today n Tribune Report

In the technology-driven world, ratio-nality without ethics has created a situa-tion where societies are less-open today.

With an increasing demand of tech-nology-driven e� ciency in the busi-ness, so-called “ine� cient” forms of government—like democracy—are of-ten suspended or eroded, said noted Canadian essayist and novelist John Ralston Saul.

“If we look at the history, we might � nd that there is no clear ethical advan-tage in technology,” he said.

Saul was speaking at a programme on “Technology and the Rise of Au-thoritarianism” organised by the Uni-versity of Liberal Arts Bangladesh at its Dhanmondi Campus on Sunday.

In a wide-ranging speach that was both spontaneous and erudite, Saul outlined the interplay between author-itarian and democratic views of the world.

The same technology which may be used in health care to protect life, can also take away many lives, he said add-ing that corporations and governments often use the excuse of “overall prog-ress” to trample basic human rights.

Dr Kazi Anis Ahmed, vice president of ULAB Board of Trustees, delivered the opening speech and introduced Saul to the audience at the programme.

ULAB Pro-vice Chancellor Profes-sor HM Jahirul Haque, Registrar Lt Col (Retd) Md Foyzul Islam faculty mem-bers, and students, among others, at-tended the programme. l

Rupali Bank forms probe body over journo assault n Tribune Report

The state-owned Rupali Bank has formed an inquiry committee over the incident of assaulting a journalist al-legedly by some Collective Bargaining Association (CBA) leaders.

The committee will investigate the occurrence and submit a report to the board of directors, says a press release issued by the bank yesterday.

On November 20, some CBA leaders beat up Tofail Ahmed, senior reporter of the daily Bartoman, and then con-� ned him to the bank’s headquarters being enraged a report on their activi-ties. In the incident, he � led a GD with Motijheel police station.

On the other hand, some 25 journal-ists met Rupali Bank Managing Direc-tor Farid Uddin demanding necessary action over the occurrence. l

Sweden to help in health, environment sectors n Tribune Report

Visiting Swedish Minister for Interna-tional Development Cooperation Isabel-la Lovin has said her country will help Bangladesh in improving its governance and health care system, and facing the challenges of climate change.

She said this during a meeting with State Minister for Foreign A� airs Shahriar Alam at his o� ce at the Secre-tariat in the capital yesterday.

In the meeting, Shahriar said Sweden can import various products, including jute, medicine, agricultural goods, small ships, leather goods, from Bangladesh.

Swedish investors can also invest in sectors such as electricity, gas and oil generation, infrastructure, textile and other � elds in the country. l

Youth from Nilphamari wins Plan International Global Awardn Our Correspondent, Nilphamari

A 19-year-old Bangladeshi youth has won the Plan International Global Award 2014 for his contribution in rais-ing awareness on education.

The awardee is Keshab Roy, son of Ajindra Barman, hailing from Kaimari village under Joldhaka upazila of Nil-phamari district.

Plan Germany, through the regional o� ce of Nilphamari, informed Keshab on Friday.

From Bangladesh, Keshab has been chosen as a volunteer for Plan Inter-national among volunteers of 70 other countries.

Keshab is the president of Rang-dhanu Shishu Forum (RSF), a Kaimari union based child rights organisation formed and patronised by Plan Interna-tional Bangladesh.

He has been working for raising awareness on education and ill e� ects of child marriage in the union.

Last year, Keshab won the Youth Courage Award introduced by the Unit-ed Nations for roles in promoting edu-cation. l

Oishee denied bail n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

A Dhaka court yesterday rejected a bail petition of Oishee Rahman in a case � led against her on charges of mur-dering her father Mahfuzur Rahman, a Special Branch inspector, and her mother Swapna Rahman last year.

Judge ABM Sajedur Rahman of Dha-ka Speedy Trial Tribunal 3 passed the or-der after hearing the petition � led by de-fence counsel Prokash Ranjan Biswas.

The court also � xed November 30 for hearing on fresh charges framing against three accused – Oishee and her friends Mizanur Rahman Rony, Asa-duzzaman Jony – in the case, Special Public Prosecutor Mahabubur Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

On November 12, Dhaka Metropoli-tan Sessions Judges’ Court shifted the

case to the speedy trial tribunal as per a home ministry’s order to dispose of the case quickly.

On August 16 last year, the couple were found murdered at Chamelibagh resi-dence in the capital. They had lived in the rented house with their two children—Oishee and Oihee, 7, and their housemaid Sumi. DB Inspector Abul Khair Matubbar, also the investigation o� cer of the case, pressed two separate charge sheets with Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court of Dhaka on March 9 this year.

According to the charge sheets, Oishee is the lone accused in the kill-ing. Jony instigated the incident and Rony gave her shelter after the murder.

Oishee, Jony and Rony are now in jail while Sumi has been freed on bail. Her trial is going on in a Dhaka juvenile court as Sumi is now under 18-year-old. l

Peter Eigen, founder chairman of Transparency International (TI), speaking at the “Meet the Media” programme of the Garment Industries Transparency Initiative (GITI), organised by TIB at its o� ce in the capital yesterday SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Guests listening to a victim at a seminar arranged by the Khan Foundation on prevention of human tra� cking at the capital’s Westin Hotel yesterday SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Lab technicians are supposed to run the tests under the supervision of doctors, who are supposed to examine the reports before issuing them

DU teacher’s daughter dies falling down a lift shaft n Tribune Report

A Dhaka University teacher’s daughter allegedly fell down an empty lift shaft at a residential building in the capital’s Lal-bagh area and died yesterday evening.

The deceased, Nazat Fayeda Sat-ta,18, was the daughter of Md Mujibul Haque and Mehejabin Haque. Mehe-jabin is an associate professor at the psychology department in Dhaka Uni-versity.

Nazat completed her higher second-ary education from Dhaka City College this year and was preparing to appear in university entrance tests. The family lives in the university sta� quarters at Fuller Road.

Mujibul, the victim’s father, told the Dhaka Tribune: “She went to her friend’s home at China Bhaban in Lal-bagh. It is a six-storey building and the lift has not been installed yet.”

Nazat allegedly fell down the lift shaft and sustained critical injuries. She was rushed to Dhaka Medical Col-lege Hospital, where the doctors on duty pronounced her dead around 6:20pm.

When this report was � led, the family had submitted an application to acquire the dead body without a post-mortem, sources at the DMCH said.

Sub-Inspector Uday Kumar Mon-dol of Lalbagh police station told the Dhaka Tribune: “We heard about the incident, but we do not have su� cient information on it yet.” l

‘Create comprehensive database on border areas to tackle women tra� cking’ n Tribune Report

Speakers recommended creating a lo-calised comprehensive database for speci� c border areas in order to stop women tra� cking at a seminar in a city hotel yesterday.

Organised by Khan Foundation, an NGO, at Hotel Westin in the capital, the seminar was titled “Fighting tra� cking and violence against women and chil-dren: Overcoming road bumps in Khan Foundation’s journey.”

At the event, speakers suggested creating an extensive local database comprising information on all kinds of migration statistics, including internal and external migration, arranged in panel data style to carry out the fol-low-up of cases regarding women and

children tra� cking. Moreover, the government needs to

add speci� c clauses to the constitution, implement the existing laws and raise awareness to put an end to human traf-� cking of Bangladeshi citizens, they said.

Addressing the event as chief guest, Ambassador of Netherlands to Ban-gladesh Gerben Sjoerd de Jong said: “Netherlands always emphasises on human rights issue in its foreign policy. For this, in Bangladesh we emphasised on LGBT rights, labour unrest and im-provement of labour conditions, and women’s rights, most importantly.

“While working on Tazreen Gar-ments issue, we have seen that we need to provide attention to some speci� c is-sues as well as in general. However, we

need to be attentive in the same way regarding women and children tra� ck-ing, both in general and speci� cally,” he said.

The Dutch ambassador also suggest-ed creating a national action to combat tra� cking and violence against women and children.

Presided over by Rokhsana Khond-ker, executive director of Khan Foun-dation, the seminar was also attended by Leo Kenny, country director of UN-AIDS Bangladesh, Dr Ehsanur Rahman, executive director of Dhaka Ahsania Mission, and Abdul Moyeen Khan, a BNP standing committee member, as well as university teachers, lawyers, NGO activists, government representa-tives, and members of the foundation’s citizen watch groups in 17 districts. l

Diagnostic centre giving fake reports busted n Ashif Islam Shaon

A mobile court aided by Rapid Action Battalion, busted a diagnostic centre in the capital which had been run-ning pathological tests without proper equipment and producing fake results.

The court conducted the raid at Na-tional Diagnostic Complex and Special-ist Consultation Centre in Mohammad-pur yesterday, sentencing its owner Md Abdul Baki Bokul, 40, and its lone tech-nician Md Saimon Ali, 22, to a year in prison. The court also � ned Bokul Tk2 lakh and Saimon Tk1 lakh.

Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, AHM Anwar Pasha, executive magistrate at RAB, said the mobile court conducted the raid along with a RAB 2 team at the diagnostic centre, located near the Na-tional Institute of Cardiovascular Dis-eases, around 11:30am.

During the raid, the court found that the centre was conducting fake tests as well as faking doctors’ signatures. It also had no certi� ed technician to op-erate its only x-ray machine.

The court talked to a patient named Parvin Akhter, 25, who had just re-ceived her test reports, at the cost of Tk1,500, during the drive. Though the diagnostic centre prepared her reports on several blood tests, the court found that its microscope was broken, it had no blood cell counter, and without making any slides of blood they have prepared her test results.

Saimon, one of the convicted frauds, said their microscope went out of com-mission a month ago, and since then they had been preparing test results based on assumption. Based on these reports, doctors prescribed medication to the patients.

The sta� collected blood, urine and other samples from the patients, and later dumped them in the waste bin, the executive magistrate quoted Saimon.

“In his confession before the court, Saimon said they used to call the sys-tem ‘bucket test.’ It cost them no mon-ey,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.

The two convicted also used the fake signature and seal of a doctor named Saiful Islam, whose identity – and existence – had yet to be con� rmed when this report was � led.

According to the law, lab technicians are supposed to run the tests under the supervision of doctors, who are sup-posed to examine the reports before issuing them.

The court caught the centre’s owner Bokul when he was operating the x-ray machine. He had no training on how to operate the machine, which itself had a clearance certi� cate out of date.

The court asked the convicted to im-mediately shut down the facility, the executive magistrate told the Dhaka Tribune.

Maj Salauddin Ahmed, an RAB o� -cial, said some brokers lured patients from government hospitals to the diag-nostic centre with the promise of has-sle-free and low-cost service, earning over 50% commission from the tests.

Quoting Bokul, the RAB o� cial said there are more than 1,000 active who collect patients, mostly coming from rural areas, from government hospi-tals and direct them toward some di-agnostic centres involved in malprac-tice, earning themselves a handsome amount of money. l

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YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW30.1ºC 11.3ºCTeknaf Rajshahi

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25

SourceL IslamicFinder.org

F O R E C A S T F O R T O D A YDhaka 28 18Chittagong 29 18Rajshahi 27 12Rangpur 28 13Khulna 28 13Barisal 28 15Sylhet 30 14Cox’s Bazar 29 20

5NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, November 25, 2014

PSC examinee found dead four days after going missingn Our Correspondent, Savar

A primary education terminal exam-inee was found dead yesterday after he had gone missing for four days at Dhamrai upazila in Dhaka on Thursday.

Ten-year-old Asif Dewan of Pathan-tola village was supposed to sit for the ongoing exams from Pathantola Gov-ernment Primary School.

His father Saiful Islam told the Dha-ka Tribune that his son had not re-

turned home since he went to collect his admit card on Thursday.

He said they searched him high and low but found nowhere and � led gen-eral diary with the local police station.

Yesterday, locals found the body of Asif in a paddy � eld in the locality. On information, police went there and re-covered the body.

Two other persons were found dead in the same upazila yesterday.

The body of 20-year-old Sonia

Akhter was recovered from a bamboo bush behind her home at Amrail village in the upazila’s Amta Union Parishad and that of the yet-to-be-identi� ed young man from a swamp at the upazi-la’s Dautia area.

Dhamrai police station O� cer-in-Charge Firoz Talukder told the Dhaka Tribune that they had recovered all three dead bodies and sent those to Dha-ka Medical College Hospital for autopsy. Three separate cases were also � led. l

College student killed in road accident in Chittagongn Tribune Report

A college student was killed in a road accident in Chittagong’s Jamal Khan area yesterday. The dead is Md Sagor, 25, a student of Hazi Mohammad Mo-hsin College in Chittagong.

Assistant Sub-Inspector Pankaj Barua of Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) police outpost said a human haulier ran over Sagor in front of the Ideal School and College in Jamal Khan area at 12noon.

Critically injured, the student was admitted to CMCH where he died around 5:30pm. l

Telecommunication disrupted as BTCL building catches � ren Our Correspondent,

Brahmanbaria

A � re broke out at Bangladesh Tele-communication Company Ltd (BTCL) building in Bhadughor area in Brah-manbaria, disrupting the telecommu-nication and internet connections.

Deputy Assistant Engineer of the BTCL said the � re had broken out from the microwave room on the ground � oor of the building because of short circuit. Machines and cables worth crores have been burned in the � re.

“Some 4,000 telecommunication and internet connections have been disrupted for the � re,” he said.

Fire Service Station O� cer Md Wa-hiullah said: “Fire ranger went to the spot around 7am and brought the blaze under control after a frantic e� ort of 40 minutes.” He said the loss caused by the � re could go up to Tk1 crore. l

President opens Jessore freedom � ghters’ complex n Our Correspondent, Jessore

President Abdul Hamid inaugurated the newly-constructed Jessore District Freedom Fighters’ Complex yesterday.

The president while inaugurating the complex said ‚’Freedom � ghters are best children of the nation. I am also a freedom � ghtter. So ingauguart-ing the complex for freedom � ghters I am feeling happy.”

Liberation War A� airs Minister AKM Mozammel Haq, local lawmaker Advo-cate Monirul Islam and government of-� cials were present at the inauguration ceremony. The president exchanged views with local freedom � ghters after inaugurating the complex.

Public Works Ministry has con-structed the two-storey complex at a cost of Tk1.42 crore.

Earlier, the president arrived in the district to attend the Signal Command-ing O� cers’ Conference and Reunion 2014 to be held today. l

Students of Barisal Health Technology Institute block road for 10-point demandsn Our Correspondent, Barisal

Students of Barisal Health Technology Institute yesterday blocking road in the city formed a human chain and held demonstration to press home their 10-point demand, including giving sec-ond-class gazetted status to diploma holder technologists and pharmacists.

The Bangladesh Diploma Medical Technology and Pharmacy Students Association has organised rally in front of Ashwini Kumar Hall.

Later, police removed them from road to resume tra� c on busy work-ing hours and allowed to form human chain on a roadside.

They also handed over a memoran-dum to the deputy commissioner.

Leaders of Bangladesh Diploma Medical Technology and Pharma-cy Students’ Association – Chandan Adhikari, Sumon Bishwas, Nirjhar Mandal, Swapan Kumar Pal, Sajal Pal, Sanjib Majumdar, Golam Murshed, Arka Pal, Shekhar Mandal addressed the programme.

Their 10-point demands included formation of diploma medical edu-cation board, creating posts as per di-rections of World Health Organisation

in public health service providing in-stitutes, giving second-class gazetted status to diploma holder technologists and pharmacists, introducing degree and masters courses for them giving � rst-class gazetted status in public service, creating new directorates for

the medical technologists and pharma-cists, giving promotions in service by creating carrier panel, registration for private practices for dental and physi-otherapy diploma holders, compulso-ry appointments of technologists and pharmacists at all private and non-gov-ernment health service providing or-ganisations under speci� ed rules and regulations.

Speakers at the rally leaders cau-tioned that if their demands would not the ful� lled soon, then they will start heard movement for that. l

Two assistant proctors of SUST resign over BCL clashn Our Correspondent, Sylhet

Two assistant proctors of Shahjalal University of Science and Technolo-gy (SUST) resigned over the factional clash between the two the Bangladesh Chhatra League groups that left a stu-dent dead.

Campus sources said assistant proc-tors – Niloy Chandra Sarkar and Abu Awal Mohammad Shoyeb – submitted their resignation letters to Proctor Hi-madri Shekhor Ray on Sunday night.

Proctor Himadri Shekhor, however, told the Dhaka Tribune that the two proctors in their resignation letters mentioned that they had quit over per-sonal grounds.

“The � nal decision in this regard will be taken after the Vice-Chancellor of the university Professor Dr Aminul Haque Bhuiyan returns home from In-dia on November 26.”

Sources of the campus seeking an-onymity said they had resigned as the BCL central committee was blaming uni-versity’s proctorial body for the clash.

Proctor Himadri Shekhor Ray may resign from his post soon, said the sources.

Earlier, Sumon Das, 22, an activist of the BCL was killed and 17 others were injured in a factional clash of the ruling party’s student wing over establishing supremacy on the campus on Thursday morning.

Later, the university authority an-nounced closure of the university for sine die. A three-member probe com-mittee, headed by SUST Prof Ilias Ud-din, has been formed to investigate the incident. The probe committee was asked to submit its report within seven working days.

Police so far picked 27 BCL activists up from di� erent areas of Sylhet city. l

In a bid to ensure safe movement of pedestrians law enforcers have evicted hawkers from most of the footover bridges across the capital. The photo was taken from the capital’s Kamalapur area yesterday SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

New tra� c control timers proving uselessAuthorities blame erratic tra� c on excessive vehicles in the unplanned cityn Abu Hayat Mahmud

The automatic countdown timers in-troduced lately in the capital are not producing the result they were meant for as tra� c police still continue to ma-noeuvre tra� c on roads manually.

The timers were installed at 70 busy intersections and have been e� ective since November 9, but tra� c police at these points hardly act in line with those as well as the tra� c lights.

For example, they do not let vehi-cles proceed even if the signal is green. As a result, long queues of vehicles waiting to cross an intersection is still commonplace on Dhaka roads.

Tra� c police o� cials blame the exces-sive number of vehicles in the capital for their inability to follow the digitised controlling system.

Besides, the tra� c lights remain turned o� and countdown timers do not work sometimes, forcing them to manually control the � ow of vehicles.

The opposite of this is also not rare. At 12:30pm yesterday, tra� c lights and the timers were working � ne at the El-ephant Road intersection but on-duty tra� c policemen were still seen indi-cating motorists to drive or stop using their hands.

Sergeant Touhidul at the intersection defended the manual controlling, say-ing the police know better how to do it.

All the tra� c lights and countdown

timers were installed by the two city cor-porations of Dhaka. These solar-pow-ered devices were installed under Dhaka South City Corporation’s Clean Air and Sustainable Environment (CASE) project at a cost of around Tk16 crore, with assis-tance from the World Bank.

Of the 70 timers, 30 were installed

in areas under the jurisdiction of Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) and the remaining 40 in Dhaka North City Cor-poration (DNCC) areas, said city corpo-ration o� cials.

Besides, the DSCC allocated TK2 crore in the current � scal year, up from Tk1.6 crore of FY2013-14, for operation

and maintenance of tra� c lights while the DNCC set aside TK9 crore in the current � scal year, up from Tk4 crore.

DMP Joint Commissioner (tra� c) Moslem Uddin told the Dhaka Tribune that tra� c police have been instructed to control tra� c according to the auto-matic devices.

“Roads in Dhaka are narrow in com-parison to those of planned cities but the number of vehicles is considerably high. This is also true if we consider the number of people who are living in Dhaka. This is a key reason why it is very di� cult to control tra� c on Dhaka roads,” he added. l

The automatic countdown timer set up recently as well as the tra� c lights are seen out of operation at the Purana Paltan intersection of the capital yesterday ABU HAYAT MAHMUD

'Roads in Dhaka are narrow in comparison to those of planned cities but the number of vehicles is considerably high'

Two bodies recoveredin capitaln Tribune Report

Police recovered two bodies from dif-ferent parts of the capital yesterday.

One of the victims was identi� ed as Md Rajib,23, a resident of Kuchibagan of Postogola in Shyampur. While, the identity of other victim could not be known immediately.

A friend of Rajib made a phone call asking him to go to a place in Easter Housing area around 1:00am, said Ra-jib’s wife Sheuli.

“One of his friend named Roni was present there. I do not know whether there was any con� ict between Roni and my husband,” said Sheuli.

Rajib used to work in a wire mak-ing factory, she said adding: “Myhusband used to work as a source of the police.”

Critically injured Rajib was rushed to the Dhaka Medical Collage Hospi-

tal where doctors declared him dead around 2:15am.

Shyampur Police Station Sub-In-spector Ali Akbar said: “Severalmarks of injuries were found in the body.”

“Primarily, we are suspecting that Rajib was killed following previous en-mity with his friends. But the reason behind murder could be known after getting postmortem report.”

Meanwhile, a slaughtered body of a man aged about 35 was recovered from a hotel in the capital’s Farmgate area on Sunday night.

Police said they recovered the body from a room on the fourth � oor of New Anon Hotel around 8:15am.

Sher-e-Bangla Police Station Of-� cer-in-charge Gonesh Gopal Bishwas said: “The body was recovered from the � oor. But the identity of the victim could not be known yet.” l

Police dispersed them from road to resume tra� c on busy working hours and allowed to form human chain ona roadside

Transport strike hits Jessoren Our Correspondent, Jessore

Loading and unloading operations at the Noapara Port in Jessore remain sus-pended as workers observed a strike yesterday, protesting the killing of their leader, Mollah Oliar Rahman.

On Sunday, Oliar, general secretary of Shramajibi Somonnoy Parishad, and joint general secretary of Abhaynagar upazila unit of Awami League, was shot dead by some unidenti� ed mis-creants near his house in the upazila.

Oilar was also a councilor of Ward No 7 of Naoapara Municipality and a correspondent of daily Janmabhumi published from Khulna.

The aggrieved workers wore black badges and refrained from taking part in any activities at the port. They also held a rally at Nurbabh in Jessore city protesting the murder.

Meanwhile, workers of small ve-hicles, including battery-run three wheelers, also extended their support to the protest. The Naoapara Press Club and the Naoapara Municipality have announced a three day mourning pro-gramme. l

6 NationDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Fund crisis compels 120 Protibha schools of Magura to closen Our Correspondent, Magura

Some 120 Protibha schools deal with the pre-primary school students to prevent the drop out rate in the dis-trict have appeared on the verge of closure as those � nancier United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Bangladesh is going to stop � -nancing From January next year as per project deadline.

Consequently, an apprehension of deprivation from one year of basic edu-cation has been looming over a total of 3,600 students of the schools.

Besides, teachers of the school are also being jobless when those will stop its activities from next year because of ap-pearing the project of 13 lakh monthly to end.

It was learnt that Non-government organisation named “Jagaroniy Chakra Foundation” with the � nancial sup-port from the USAID, Bangladesh had launched the four-year pre-primary education project at the 120 public pri-mary schools Sadar and Mohammadpur upazila in 2010. The main motto of the project is to minimise the drop out of the primary students in the district, which was vastly known as Protibha school that enrols 30 children for one year.

In the meantime, the schools have gained outstanding popularity among the locals as teaching method here is not traditional while no book is used in the process. Rather, di� erent elements such as games and sports considered inter-

esting to the children are used to teach them any topic. On the other hand, in case of any drop out, the teachers ap-pointed locally motivate the guardians to send their children to school.

One guardian namely Nitay Roy from Vabonpara village in Mohammadpur upazila said: “My daughter is now � ve years old and I am thinking of sending her to local Protibha school. But recently I have heard that the schools will be closed from coming year and certainly not only my daughter also local children will be deprived from the basic education.”

Another guardian named Abdul Mozid from village Sotofalia in Sadar Magura sadar upazilla told, my daughter goes to local Protibha school.. I never force her to go to school. He goes there willingly. Moreover he feels interested in going to school as teaching method in the schools is easy and attractive. Abdul Mozid add-ed, if my daughter fails to go to schools someday the teacher visits my house and ask me about the reason of her absence. Such cordiality of teacher is encouraging for me as well as my daughter.

On contact, Md Shahin Mreedha team leader of Protibha school program told, a total of 3600 children are receiv-ing education in 120 Protibha schools of the district. On the other hand about 4500 children of the district are getting prepared to be admitted in the schools from coming year. But want of � nancial support is one and only impediment here. Financial Support of 12 lakhs and 96 thousand per month can raise a new hope for Protibha schools. But who is there to extend his helping hand?

He already contacted with the lo-cal education primary school, who in-formed them to pay heed to it.

Sadar upazila chairman md nazim uddin said they received a letter in this regard and the matter will be placed in the upcoming regular meeting. l

Indiscriminate catching reducing snail countn Our Correspondent, Gopalganj

Uncontrolled and large scale catching of snails is posing a threat to the spe-cies in Gopalganj. About � ve thou-sand people of the � ve upazilas of the district are earning their livelihood by catching snails.

Snails caught in the district have a great demand among the shrimp hatcheries in Khulna, Bagerhat, Satkhi-ra, and Barisal.

According to the Fisheries and Live-stock Department, shrimp farming has picked up over the last few years in the south-western region of the country. And snail-meat helps rapid growth of shrimps. That is why demand of snails has also gone up.

Snails are usually found in plenty in freshwater bodies. People from low income group collect snails all day long from Gopalganj sadar, Kotalipa-ra, Tungipara, Maksudpur and Kashi-

ani areas of the district. Then they are sold for Tk250-300 per maund at major markets of Kotalipara. Snails from this district are then distributed to Khulna and Bagerhat where they are sold for a higher price.

Shantiram Roy, a snail collector from Kandi village of Kotalipara said numbers of snails were reducing day by day. Nowadays a whole day collection of snails amounts to two-hour labour previously.

Businessman Kamal Hossain said snails available nowadays did not even meet one percent of the total demand. Hence they are having to collect snails from farther regions with increased transportation expense.

Underscoring the ecological impor-tance of snails, Tungipara agriculture o� cer Horolal Madhu said snails help increase the fertility of arable land by eating up the dangerous elements. Be-sides, during the dry season decompos-ing snails add to the fertility. But with

the snail number fast reducing farmers are having to spend more in producing crops by using various chemical ferti-lizers.

“Snails are cheaper than � sh feed in the market. Besides, they are also a bet-ter food for shrimps. Hence there is a huge demand. But such indiscriminate catching is also hurting the species to the extent that they are not being able to reproduce and multiply,” said Assistant Director of Faridpur Fisheries Develop-ment Project Narayan Chandra Das.

He suggested private initiative to commercial farming of snails. “Be-sides, the government ban on collect-ing snails must be implemented strictly and punishment for o� enders should be clearly laid out,” he added. l

Sammilito Medical Technology Sangram Parishad brings out a procession in Rajshahi town yesterday demanding measures to ful� ll its 10-point demands AZAHAR UDDIN

Contraband worth Tk1.20 crore seized n Our Correspondent, Jessore

Members of Border Guard Bangladesh seized 39,000 pieces of Senegra tablets and 692 bottles of contraband phen-sidyl worth Tk 1.20 crore from Daulat-pur border point here on Sunday night.

BGB battalion-23 commanding of-� cer Lieutenant Colonel Rahim said, on a tip-o� , a team BGB conducted a drive in the border area and seized 39,000 pieces of Senegra tablets (sex stimulat-ing tablets) and 692 bottles of Phensidyl.

The smugglers � ed the scene after sensing the presence of the BGB team. l

Police injured while trying to arrest criminal

n Our Correspondent, Gazipur

A police o� cer was injured critically as the criminals attacked him yesterday while the law enforcers went to Azugir Chala area in Sreepur upazila of the district to arrest two listed criminals.

Mohsinul Kader, o� cer-in-charge of Sreepour mod-el police station said a team of police went to the area to arrest Afsaruddin,60, and his son Sohel Rana,34, ac-cused in a case.

At one stage, the law en-forcers arrested Sohel. But after while, the people of the house surrounded the police personnel and at one stage Sohel hit SI Shahjahan leav-ing him critically injured. The people also swooped on the police with local weapons and snatched away Sohel.

On information, locals went to the spot and res-cued the members of law enforcers. The police o� cer was admitted to Sreepur Health Complex from where he was sent to Rajar-bag Police Hospital.

The house members went into hiding after the incident, said the OC. l

UP member jailed for leaking PSC question papern Our Correspondent,

Tangail

A mobile court yesterday jailed an Union Parishad member for two years on charges of hand-writting and photocopying a ques-tion paper, which partially matches with that of Bangla under Primary Education Terminal Examinations at Basail upazila in Tangail.

The convict was identi-� ed as Harun, a member of Kanchanpur Union Parish-ad, who runs three coach-ing centres in the area. l

Mother and son killed over sex businessn Our Correspondent, Rajshahi

A woman and her son were hacked to death over sex business at Deolia vil-lage in Bagmara upazila yesterday.

The deceased were identi� ed as Akh-lima Begum, 45, wife of former UP mem-ber late Mojibur, and their son Jahidur Rahmna Jahid, 25, a college student.

Sources said local people found the lying bodies in their house in the morn-ing and informed police.

Police said, they might have been

killed by stabbing at � rst and later they were hacked.

The sources said Akhlima used to run sex-business in a rented house and several times she was arrested for this.

Shahina, the daughter of the de-ceased also said her mother might have been killed over the business.

Alamgir Kabir, superintendent of po-lice said Akhlima used to run the busi-ness in the area. Earlier, a mobile court also sent her to jail for two months for running the business in the locality. l

The main motto of the project is to minimise the drop out of the primary students in the district

Experts suggest commercial farming to meet increasing demand

7Long Form Tuesday, November 25, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Garga Chatterjee

If you have not watched the Youtube video Enna Da Rascalas: South of India, you should. It is a crisply made catchy-tune video made by a talented group of

artists calling themselves the Culture Machine and Stray Factory. It has gone “viral,” logging more than 1.2 million hits in seven days.

It humorously aims to inform people about the di� erent peoples of “South of India” and their distinct cul-tures, lifestyles and other attributes. “There’s no Madrasi, we are all padosi (neighbours)” was the main message. Using the tune of “We didn’t start the

� re,” it does a better job in showcas-ing the foods and old monuments of “South of India” among other things than the sarkari “Incredible India!” tourism promotion campaigns.

I must confess, “Madrasi” is a word which I use with fellow Bangalis. “Ma-drasi” is a word that I grew up with in Bengal. Actually, in Bangla, we say “Madraji” rather than “Madrasi.” The word has long been used in popular literature – long before the � rst Hindi language � lm was made. It has not been used as a derogatory term. I did not grow up in the upper Gangetic plains of the subcontinent. I am told that “up there,” it is often mixed with a derogatory mindset.

“Madraji” is a Bangla word that I have used to internally communicate with fellow Bangalis to signal a con-cept that we commonly understand. While it is a catch-all term for peoples of the Dravidian linguistic nationali-ties of the subcontinent, the word was not used to obfuscate di� erences. In fact, the actually existing di� erences between the peoples of the Dravidian linguistic nationalities were of margin-al importance.

What was important was the “Ma-drajis” we interacted with in Bengal and the concept of the “Madraji” that we made based on those interactions. The “Madraji” held a certain location in Bengal’s cosmos – the coordinates being a distantly related and highly refracted form of the actual, refracted by a Bangali metropolitan lens.

How did the “Madrasi” come about in Bengal? The stereotypical “Madraji” in the eyes of Bengal is a being whose shape is determined by the speci� c encounter of the Dravidian linguistic nationalities with Bengal, largely dur-ing the colonial period. Large parts of peninsular South Asia, spanning over multiple Dravidian homelands, were part of the Madras presidency.

Concepts like “Madras” (to mean a large geography and its peoples) developed during this time, primarily due to the arbitrary administrative nomenclature of the colonial masters. Another concept, which gained similar currency during this time, was “India.”

The made-up “Madras” is now no-where to be found, with the reorgani-sation of states on linguistic basis and � nally, the renaming of the name-giv-ing city. “India” has variously frag-mented into a sacrosanct concept (in the Indian Union), a conspiring power-ful enemy (in Pakistan), a domineering “friend” (in Bangladesh), an important neighbour (in Myanmar) and so on.

This kind of identity creation has a predictable past in many erstwhile colonial areas. Circulation of pro-fessionals and labourers to newer colonial urban centres of the subcon-tinent created the “Madrasi” and the “Indian.” Given the unequal emphasis that the Indian Union gives to its di� erent constituent nationalities (its “soul” clearly not located south of the Vindhyas even if its revenue producers are), it always falls on certain people to do the job of explaining themselves to others.

Stereotypes are a fact of life but event after event in the Indian Union’s dil (heart) called Delhi shows that not all stereotypes are harmless. What is worse than stereotypes is trying to undo the stereotypes by gently appeal-ing to those who came up with the negative stereotypes. Nothing shows

the existing power di� erences within the Indian Union more clearly.

Those doing the self-explaining are predictable peoples – Nagas, Mani-puris, Mizos, Kannadigas, Tamils, etc. The audience is common – the urban people from the “soul” country. The “soul” people can carry on without having to explain themselves. That is a privilege the non-soul people of the subcontinent don’t have. They have to carry name-tags like diverse exotic plants in a herbarium with an imperial curator.

The “soul” people are the “main-stream,” the template, the obvious “Indians” – the knowledge of their nuance being expected from non-soul people, with Bollywood helping along. We must also remember that for the many poor and rural people in the subcontinent, there is no “Madrasi” or “Bangali.” They may be from “soul” country but are not “soul” people because their sense of self-hood often does not depend on encounters with distant aliens. They have not been fully incorporated into the language of public political correctness and pan-India consumer literacy.

From the viewpoint of the 1947 “other” of the Indian Union – namely West Pakistan and East Bengal – the

Indian Union represented Hindustan. The twinned words Hindustan-Paki-stan gained currency in the run-up to partition and have not disappeared from public discourse. But what is Hindustan given that the term pre-dates 1947? That it is the not the same as the British empire in South Asia is clear. The noted editor of the Kara-chi-based Urdu quarterly Aaj, the bril-liant Ajmal Kamal, has explained with ample references the limited nature of the concept of Hindustan.

In a talk at Delhi, he says, “When someone used to travel from here to the Punjab, it was said that this person is Hindustani. So clearly, Punjab was not part of Hindustan.” He goes on to

quote Shibli Nomani, the famous 19th century Islamic scholar from Azam-garh, who writes as a matter-of-fact, “I am going back to Hindustan from Bombay.” So, even these areas were not Hindustan.

The de� nition of “Hindustan” has not been constant and the term has been expanded and used to suit the divisive political or ideological needs of subcontinental Hindu-Muslim rival-ry, especially from 1940 onwards. In Bengal, we have another term called “Hindustani” and it is clearly “not us.” So Bengal was and is not Hindustan ei-

ther, though in the warped ideological lens of some in East Bengal and many in Pakistan, West Bengal is very much in Hindustan.

In today’s atmosphere in the Indian Union, it is increasingly hard to equate Hindustani with “not us,” given how the mythic Hindustan has come to become synonymous with “India” in extremely powerful circles that shape public discourse and imagina-tion. When someone says, we are all “Hindustanis,” there is a smothering of identities for unholier motives, quite di� erent from the “Madrasi.”

Many made-up identities are those that are handed down from the point of view of outsiders. Many from

outside the subcontinent also operate with a conception of a creature called “Indian.” If I say to them, “There’s no indian, we are all padosee,” am I completely wrong?

What then is the fundamental di� erence between the constructs “Madras” and “India”? If they are both mythical, as in do not correspond to some speci� c actual, can we say that it is a myth supported by an army that ensures its survival and even � ourish-ing to the point of becoming an actual?

There are uncomfortable questions on the other side of “Madras.” They are intimately tied to the identity questions that plague the peoples of the subcontinent, down to this day. “Bangali” and “Bangladeshi” are also terms that need unpacking, whether some like it or not. The same logic holds. l

Garga Chatterjee is a freelance contributor. He can be followed on twitter @gargac.

What’s your identity?

There are uncomfortable questions on the other side of ‘Madras.’ They are intimately tied to the identity questions that plague the peoples of the subcontinent, down to this day

What is the fundamental di� erence between the constructs ‘Madras’ and ‘India’? REUTERS

The poster of this Bollywood hit shows clearly how ‘Madrasis’ are perceived

The stereotypical ‘Madraji’ in the eyes of Bengal is a being whose shape is determined by the speci� c encounter of the Dravidian linguistic nationalities with Bengal, largely during the colonial period

What is worse than stereotypes is trying to undo the stereotypes by gently appealing to those who came up with the negative stereotypes. Nothing shows the existing power di� erences within the Indian Union more clearly

The made-up ‘Madras’ is now nowhere to be found, with the reorganisation of states on linguistic basis and � nally, the renaming of the name-giving city

Tuesday, November 25, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World8

Iran atom talks set to resume next month after missing deadlinen Reuters, Ienna

Iran and six world powers are expect-ed to break o� negotiations on Mon-day and meet again next month after missing a deadline to clinch a � nal deal to resolve their 12-year stando� over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, diplomat-ic sources said.

Details about the resumption of negotiations were still being worked out, though one source said on con-dition of anonymity that Iran could not expect any new sanctions relief for the time being. Possible venues could include Vienna and Oman, one of the sources said, though nothing had been decided.

“Given progress made this week-end, talks headed to likely extension with experts and negotiating teams reconvening in December at a yet-to-be-determined location,” a Western diplomat said in an email. The diplo-mat declined to be identi� ed.

The deadline for a deal, agreed in July when the two sides missed an ear-lier target date, was Monday.

“Some progress has been made,” said another diplomat involved in the talks. “But we need to discuss some issues with our capitals. We will meet again before the new year. This is an ongoing process.”

The talks in Vienna aim for a deal that could transform the Middle East, open the door to ending economic sanctions

on Iran and start to bring a nation of 76 million people in from the cold after de-cades of hostility with the West.

The cost of failure could be high. Iran’s regional foes Israel and Saudi Arabia are watching the Vienna talks nervously. Both fear a weak deal that fails to curtail Tehran’s nuclear ambi-tions, while a collapse of the negotia-tions would encourage Iran to become a threshold nuclear weapon state, something Israel has said it would nev-er allow.

Some Iranian media have also re-ported on the possibility of an ex-tension of the negotiations. Sourc-es close to the talks told Reuters a formal extension of an interim deal agreed a year ago in Geneva was be-ing discussed though it was unclear how long the negotiations would be prolonged.

A formal extension of the negotia-

tions would likely require new com-mitments on both sides – additional limited sanctions relief for Iran and new commitments on curbing nucle-ar work.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif were meeting with coun-terparts from Britain, France, Germa-ny, Russia and China in what could be the � nal session of the current round.

It became increasingly clear during a week of intensive negotiations be-tween that what o� cials close to the talks have been predicting privately for weeks will likely be correct: barring a last-minute decision by Iran to com-promise, a � nal deal is still too far o� to hammer out by the deadline later on Monday.

If the two sides reach a deal after a one-month adjournment, it would still be before the upcoming change in US Congress, where hardline Repub-licans will dominate both houses in January. Hawkish US lawmakers have threatened to push for new sanctions on Iran if there is no concrete prog-ress in the talks.

Some Western o� cials have de-scribed two possible options for a likely rollover. Under one scenario, described as the “stop the clock op-tion,” the talks would simply break o� and experts would reconvene in a few weeks. l

Iran cuts uranium gas stockpile under interim nuclear deal-IAEAIran has reduced its stockpile of low-enriched uranium gas and taken other action to comply with the terms of last year’s interim nuclear agreement with world powers, a UN nuclear agen-cy report showed on Monday.

Gurlitt’s hoard: prestigious works of shady provenance n AFP

The Bern Art Museum has agreed to accept artworks from a billion-euro collection from the late Cornelius Gurlitt, a recluse whose trove included masterpieces looted from their Jewish owners by the Nazis. The Bern Art Museum discovered in May it had been named sole heir of Gurlitt, the recluse who secretly kept the collection of more than 1,200 artworks hidden for decades until tax inspectors stumbled upon them on a visit to his Munich apartment in 2012

The trove of more than 1,500 artworks bequeathed by Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of a Nazi-era art dealer, to Switzerland’s Museum of Fine Arts includes “Nazi loot” and art denounced by Adolf Hitler as “degenerate.”

Much research still lies ahead into the provenance of some of the collection, whose acceptance by the Bern-based mu-

seum was announced at a highly-anticipat-ed press conference in Berlin on Monday.

But provenance work by a German government-appointed task force has already established that three works were stolen by the Nazis and are to be returned “immediately” to the rightful owners’ heirs.

They are:- “Two Riders on the Beach,” painted by

Max Liebermann in 1901, which the task force said was seized from industrialist and avid art collector David Friedmann “as a consequence of the Nazi persecution of Jewish citizens.”

- “Seated Woman” by Henri Matisse dating from 1924 which was determined to have been looted by the Nazis from Par-is-based Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg, whose heirs include French journalist Anne Sinclair, the former wife of ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

- “Playing the Piano,” a drawing by

Germany’s Carl Spitzweg, to be returned to the heirs of music publisher Henri Hin-richsen, who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1942.

‘Degenerate’ art Nobody knows the exact value of the collection that tax o� cials stumbled across in Gurlitt’s Munich � at during a routine investigation in 2012 but some have suggested it could be in the hundreds of millions of euros.

Some of the pieces were unknown; others were feared missing for good.

The stash included works by some of the most prestigious names in art history, such as Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Cezanne, Rodin, Dix, Pissarro, Holbein, Gauguin, Cha-gall, Delacroix, Degas and Munch.

Nearly 300 other works were later also recovered from his property in Salzburg, Austria. l

Tamir Rice: US police kill boy, 12, carrying replica gunn BBC

A 12-year-old boy has died after being shot by police in the US city of Cleve-land, after carrying what turned out to be a replica gun in a playground.

Police say an o� cer � red two shots at Tamir Rice after he failed to obey an order to raise his hands.

He did not make any verbal threats nor point the gun towards the o� cers.

A lawyer representing his family said it would be carrying out its own investigation into what happened.

The incident comes as a grand jury decision in Ferguson, Missouri, will decide imminently whether to indict a police o� cer in the fatal shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.

His shooting in August in Ferguson sparked days of violent protests in the town, prompting a heavy police crack-down.

The boy was shot on Saturday af-ternoon and died in hospital early on Sunday morning.

Cleveland deputy police chief Ed Tomba said the boy shot twice after pulling the gun from the waistband of his trousers.

An audio recording of the 911 emer-gency call made by the man who re-ported the incident reveals that on two occasions he said that the pistol was “probably a fake” and on another oc-casion that the person holding it “was probably a juvenile.” l

‘UK faces biggest threat to its security since 9/11’n Reuters

Britain faces a bigger threat to its se-curity from terrorism than at any time before or since the Sept. 11 2001 attacks on the United States, Home Secretary Theresa May said on Monday.

The government will introduce new counter-terrorism legislation on Wednesday to tackle a range of threats, May said, particularly from Britons who have returned from � ght-ing in Syria and Iraq alongside Isla-mist militants.

“When the security and intelligence agencies tell us that the threat we face is now more dangerous than at any time before or since 9/11 we should take notice,” she told an audience in London.

May said that since 52 people were killed when four young Britons car-ried out suicide bombings in London in 2005, around 40 terrorist plots had been disrupted.

These included attempts to conduct Mumbai-style gun attacks on British streets, a plot to blow up the London Stock Exchange, plans to bring down airliners and conspiracies to murder a British ambassador and military ser-vicemen.

“Almost all of these attacks have been prevented,” said May. “But as the IRA once boasted, the terrorists only have to be lucky once.” l

Uncertainty fuels speculation on Ferguson decisionn AP, Ferguson, Mo

The � nal weekend before the Thanks-giving holiday passed without a grand jury decision on whether to indict a Fer-guson police o� cer, fueling new spec-ulation about the timing as protesters demand justice for Michael Brown.

After meeting Friday but apparently

not reaching a decision, the grand jury was widely expected to reconvene on Monday to consider possible charges against Darren Wilson, the white sub-urban St. Louis o� cer who fatally shot the black 18-year-old after a confron-tation in August. There was no o� cial con� rmation about when the grand jury would meet again.

Protesting on Sunday night, Reggie Cunningham said he doubted Wilson will be indicted and it seemed author-ities were delaying an announcement “to spin this in the most positive way possible.”

“The more that they drag this out, the angrier people are going to be,” said Cunningham, 30, of St. Louis. l

Women are not equal to men, Turkish President Erdogan saysn AFP

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo-gan on Monday declared that women are not equal to men and launched a bitter attack against feminists in Tur-key, claiming they reject the concept of motherhood.

Speaking at a summit in Istanbul on justice for women, the devoutly Muslim president said that biological di� erences between women and men meant they cannot serve the same functions in life.

“Our religion (Islam) has de� ned a position for women (in society): moth-erhood,” Erdogan told an audience of Turkish women including his own daughter Sumeyye.

“Some people can understand this, while others can’t. You cannot explain this to feminists because they don’t ac-cept the concept of motherhood.”

He recalled, “I would kiss my moth-er’s feet because they smelled of par-adise. She would glance coyly and cry sometimes.

“Motherhood is something else.” He went on to say that women and men

cannot be treated equally “because it is against human nature.”

“Their characters, habits and phy-siques are di� erent ... You cannot place a mother breastfeeding her baby on an equal footing with men.

“You cannot get women to do every kind of work men can do, as in Com-munist regimes.

“You cannot tell them to go out and dig the soil. This is against their deli-cate nature.”

Erdogan was apparently referring to the practice during and after World War II for women in Communist states like the USSR to do heavy manual work in factories or in roles such as tram drivers.

The Islamic-rooted government of Erdogan has long been accused by crit-ics of seeking to erode the country’s secular principles and limiting the civil liberties of women.

Erdogan has also drawn the ire of feminist groups for declaring that ev-ery woman in Turkey should have three children and with proposals to limit abortion rights and the morn-ing-after pill. l

Hagel resigns as US defense secretaryn Reuters, Washington

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has resigned, the � rst major cabinet change after Obama’s Democrats were routed in mid-term elections three weeks ago.

Obama was to announce Hagel’s resignation at a White House event at 11:10 a.m. (1610 GMT) on Monday.

Hagel, who had struggled to im-prove his ties with Congress after a contentious 2013 con� rmation hear-ing, submitted his resignation letter after lengthy discussions with Obama that began in October, o� cials said.

“A successor will be named in short order, but Secretary Hagel will remain

as Defense Secretary until his replace-ment is con� rmed by the United States Senate,” a senior Obama administra-tion o� cial said.

Hagel had raised questions about Obama’s strategy toward Syria in a two-page internal policy memo he wrote that leaked. In it, he warned that Obama’s policy was in jeopardy due to its failure to clarify its intentions to-ward Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Obama has insisted that the United States can go after Islamic State mili-tants without addressing Assad, who the United States would like to leave power.

O� cials said Obama wanted fresh leadership during the � nal two years

of his administration.“What I can tell you is there are no

policy di� erences in the background of this decision,” a senior US defense o� cial said.

“The secretary is not resigning in protest and he’s not being ‘� red’,” the o� cial said.

Top potential candidates to replace Hagel include Michele Flournoy, a for-mer under secretary of defense, and Ashton Carter, a former deputy secre-tary of defense, who were rumored to be contenders for Hagel’s job before he was named.

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, is another possible con-tender. l

Computer spying malware uncovered with ‘stealth’ features n Reuters

An advanced malicious software appli-cation has been uncovered that since 2008 was used to spy on private com-panies, governments, research insti-tutes and individuals in 10 countries, antivirus software maker Symantec Corp said in a report on Sunday.

The Mountain View, Califor-nia-based maker of Norton antivirus products said its research showed that a “nation state” was likely the devel-oper of the malware called Regin, or Backdoor.Regin, but Symantec did not identify any countries or victims.

Symantec said Regin’s design “makes it highly suited for persistent, long-term surveillance operations against targets,” and was withdrawn in 2011 but resurfaced from 2013 onward.

The malware uses several “stealth” features “and even when its presence is detected, it is very di� cult to ascertain what it is doing,” according to Syman-tec. It said “many components of Regin remain undiscovered and additional functionality and versions may exist.”

Almost half of all infections oc-curred at addresses of Internet service providers, the report said. It said the targets were customers of the compa-nies rather than the companies them-selves. About 28% of targets were in telecoms while other victims were in

the energy, airline, hospitality and re-search sectors, Symantec said.

Symantec described the malware as having � ve stages, each “hidden and encrypted, with the exception of the � rst stage.” It said “each individual stage provides little information on the complete package. Only by acquiring all � ve stages is it possible to analyze and understand the threat.”

Regin also uses what is called a modular approach that allows it to load custom features tailored to targets, the same method applied in other mal-ware, such as Flamer and Weevil (The Mask), the antivirus company said. Some of its features were also similar to Duqu malware, uncovered in Sep-tember 2011 and related to a computer worm called Stuxnet, discovered the previous year.

Cybersecurity is a sensitive topic for businesses in the United States, where there have been several breach-es of major companies and customer information. The US government and private cyber intelligence � rms have said they suspect state-backed hackers in China or Russia may be responsible.

Symantec said Russia and Saudi Ara-bia accounted for about half of the con-� rmed infections of the Regin malware and the other countries were Mexico, Ireland, India, Iran, Afghanistan, Bel-gium, Austria and Pakistan. l

German expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s ‘Alpsonntag-Szene am Brunnen’ (Sunday in the Alps-Scene at the Well) is seen hanging from the wall in the Bern Art Museum in the Swiss capital of Bern REUTERS

Workers repair a gas pipeline damaged during shelling between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukrainian village Krasnyi Pakhar, in the Donetsk region on Sunday AFP

Tuesday, November 25, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE World 9

China seizes 31 tra� cking suspects holding Myanmar womenn Reuters, Beijing

Chinese authorities in the northern re-gion of Inner Mongolia arrested 31 peo-ple on suspicion of tra� cking women because they had held 14 people, 11 of them from Myanmar, state media said yesterday.

Five of the non-Chinese victims were younger than 18 and were hand-ed to Myanmar police after a three-month investigation into the gang, which ensnared the women by o� ering them tours and jobs, the o� cial Xin-hua news agency said.

The victims were then sold as wives in rural China for as little as 50,000 yuan ($8,142).

China’s gender imbalance, the re-sult of its one-child policy and illicit abortion of girl babies because of a tra-ditional preference for boys, has led to a huge surplus of single men. The lat-est census showed 118 newborn males for every 100 females.

In September, state media reported that Chinese police would clamp down on websites that sell group tours to enable men to meet “foreign brides” in Southeast Asian countries, as the practice leads to human tra� cking and prostitution. Last year, a US State De-partment report cited Russia and Chi-na as being among the world’s worst o� enders in � ghting forced labor and sex tra� cking. l

‘ Afghan women excluded from peace talks’n Reuters, Kabul

Afghan women are excluded from e� orts to negotiate peace with the Taliban and hard-won rights could be bargained away unless more is done to include them in the process, aid agen-cy Oxfam said in a report on Monday.

In 23 rounds of peace talks tracked by Oxfam since 2005, not one Afghan wom-an participated in discussions between the Taliban and international negotiators. In talks between the Taliban and the gov-ernment, only one Afghan woman was present on two occasions, Oxfam said.

“Negotiations and peace talks to date have taken place predominantly behind closed doors and without Af-ghan women’s knowledge, input or in-volvement,” the report said.

Under the hardline, Islamist Taliban government ousted by US-led forces in 2001, women were banned from edu-cation, employment and public life.

Signi� cant gains made over more than a decade of foreign intervention are now at risk or have already been rolled back, Oxfam said, and the dia-logue so far had missed the opportuni-ty to stress the importance of protect-ing women’s rights.

“It is clear that women’s rights have been a low priority,” the report said.

Just nine of 70 members of the Afghan

High Peace Council are women, and their role is largely symbolic, according to Ox-fam, which advocates a 30% minimum threshold for female inclusion.

The Taliban said on Sunday it was in favour of including women in both the talks and any future government, but only once all foreign troops had left Afghanistan. Under the current plan, US and other foreign forces will stay on throughout 2016.

“If invasion is over and Afghans have a chance to build their own sys-tem, then each and every individual, man and woman, in this country can play a role in it,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters.

While Afghans and foreign donors alike are optimistic that new president Ashraf Ghani will do more to protect women’s rights, there has been little obvious improvement so far.

Women made up only a small frac-tion of delegations accompanying Ghani on his � rst foreign trips to re-gional powers China and Pakistan, described as part of his e� ort to revive peace talks with the Taliban.

“Afghans should not have to wor-ry that the world will forget promis-es made to Afghan women and allow women’s rights to be negotiated away,” Oxfam country director John Watt said in the report. l

6.7m Pakistanis used drugs in 2013 n Agencies

Around six per cent Pakistanis — 6.7 million people aged between 15 and 64 years —used drugs over the past 12 months, reports Dawn.

The Drug Use in Pakistan 2013 Survey Report released here on Saturday said that 4.25m people were thought to be drug dependent but treatment and spe-cialist interventions were in short supply.

The treatment was available to less than 30,000 drug users during the pe-riod under review, the report said, add-ing that not all structured treatment was free of charge.

The survey on the prevalence and patterns of drug use among the pop-ulation aged 15 to 64 aims to inform the government, civil society and pri-vate-sector organisations so that they could develop and implement e� ec-tive prevention, treatment and care services in the country.

Balochistan Health Minister Reh-mat Saleh Baloch launched the report prepared by the United Nations O� ce on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) in col-laboration with the Narcotics Control Division, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

The report says that in a country where almost a quarter of the popu-lation is estimated to be living on less than $1.25 a day, the barriers prevent-ing access to structured treatment are exceptionally high. l

Atleast 47 dead in Nepal bus crashn Agencies

The death toll from a bus crash in west-ern Nepal has risen to 47, making it one of the country’s deadliest road acci-dents in years, police said.

Emergency workers pulled the bod-ies of 44 victims from the wreckage of the overcrowded bus over the week-end after it plunged into the deep Bheri river in mountainous Jajarkot district on Thursday.

The bodies of three other victims had earlier been found, and police said rescuers were still searching for more victims in the deep, fast-� owing river, 400km west of the capital, Kathmandu.

According to local news website Ne-pal News, around 32 bodies have been identi� ed, while the remaining 15 are yet to be identi� ed.

Deadly crashes are relatively com-mon in the Himalayan nation because of poor roads, badly maintained vehi-cles and reckless driving.

“The con� rmed death toll so far is 47,” said Jajarkot police chief Dinesh Raj Mainali.

“We have recovered all the bod-ies that were trapped inside the bus wreckage. Now we are searching for any bodies that may be outside the bus.”

Police believe the accident hap-pened when the bus driver saw a tractor approaching from the oppo-site direction and swerved to avoid it, sending the vehicle o� the narrow road, Mainali said.

There were only 45 people on the of-� cial passenger list, but police believe the driver stopped along the route to pick up extra travellers without regis-tering them.

“There are 42 seats inside the bus so it was somewhat overloaded,” Mainali said.

Ten injured passengers were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment after the bus plunged into the river. l

India names special envoy for China border talksn Reuters, New Delhi

India on Monday named its powerful national security adviser as a special envoy on China, opening the way for resumption of talks on the disputed border, where tensions have risen in recent months over border patrols and sti� er defences.

Ajit Doval, a close aide of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will lead the negotiations with Chinese State Coun-cillor Yang Jiechi to try and reach a set-tlement on dispute over the 3,500-km (2,175-mile) border that has clouded rapidly expanding commercial links.

In September, the two armies were locked in a faceo� in the Ladakh sector in the western Himalayas just as Chinese President Xi Jinping was visiting India for the � rst summit talks with Modi.

Both leaders vowed to work togeth-er to resolve the border row that has de� ed a solution even after 17 rounds of high level talks over the last decade and negotiations even earlier between the diplomats of the two countries. l

Tibetan mega-dam begins operationn AFP

China has begun generating electricity from Tibet’s biggest ever hydropower project, state-run media reported, the latest dam development on Himalayan rivers that has prompted concern in neighbouring India.

The first generating unit of the 9.6 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) Zangmu Hydropower Station, which stands more than 3,300 metres above sea level, went into operation on Sun-day, China’s official Xinhua news agency said.

The dam on the Yarlung Zangbo

river – known as the Brahmaputra in India, where it is a major waterway – will be 116 metres (381 feet) high when completed next year, according to re-ports.

It will have a total generating capac-ity of 510,000 kilowatts, Xinhua said, making it the largest dam ever built on the Tibetan plateau.

“The hydropower station will solve Tibet’s power shortage, especially in the winter,” Xinhua quoted an o� cial from the Tibet Electric Power Co. as saying.

India has previously expressed con-cern about damming the Brahmaputra,

one of the largest Himalayan rivers and a lifeline to some of India’s remote, farm-dependent northeastern states.

India’s foreign ministry last year urged China “to ensure that the in-terests of downstream states are not harmed by any activities in upstream areas” of the river, after state media re-ports that China planned several more dams there.

Foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said Monday that New Delhi had been aware the dam was “coming up.”

“The Chinese have told us that it should no implication for us,” he said.

Chinese dam construction has been blamed for reduced � ow and sudden � ooding on the Mekong river which � ows into Southeast Asia, claims Bei-jing has denied.

Chinese foreign ministry spokes-woman Hua Chunying told reporters, “the hydropower stations China builds will not a� ect the � ood prevention and ecological system of downstream areas.”

Chinese media showed photo-graphs of the Tibetan dam – a large concrete structure that did not appear to have � ooded an area signi� cantly wider than the river’s original span. l

China blasts US comments on island project as ‘irresponsible’n AFP

Beijing on Monday dismissed as “irre-sponsible” US criticism of its construc-tion of an arti� cial island reportedly large enough for an airstrip in a disput-ed section of the South China Sea.

The statement by China’s foreign ministry came after a US military spokesman urged Beijing to stop what it described as a vast land reclamation project on the Spratly Islands.

The island chain, which the Chinese call Nansha, is also claimed in whole or part by the Philippines, Malaysia, Viet-nam, Taiwan and Brunei.

“External forces have no right to make irresponsible remarks,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular brie� ng when asked about Washington’s comments.

“The construction activities China is undertaking are for the improvement of the working and living conditions of the island-stationed personnel, so that they can better ful� l their internation-al obligations and responsibilities in search and rescue,” she added.

A report last week by IHS Jane’s De-fence revealed new details of a land reclamation project China is under-

taking on Fiery Cross Reef, known as Yongshu in Chinese.

Beijing claims nearly all of the re-source-rich South China Sea, while Bru-nei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have their own claims, several of them also building structures on reefs or occupying islands.

According to the IHS Jane’s Defence report the arti� cial island is 3,000 me-tres (9,842 feet) long and 200-300 me-tres wide, one of several reclamation projects being pursued by China in the region but apparently the � rst that could accommodate an airstrip.

A harbour has been dug out on the east side of the reef that appears large enough for tankers and naval war-ships, it said.

Days after the report, US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Je� rey Pool called on China and other govern-ments to cease such construction.

Outspoken People’s Liberation Army Major General Luo Yuan also defended the project, which he called “completely legitimate and justi� able” in an interview with the state-run Global Times newspaper.

“The US is obviously biased consid-ering that the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam have already set up military facilities,” Luo was quoted as saying.

In a separate editorial the newspa-per contended that China was build-ing on the reef “mainly to improve the living standards of the reef-stationed soldiers.”

“China’s construction on the Yong-shu Reef will not be a� ected by US words,” the paper wrote.

It added: “The Yongshu Reef is becoming a big island, which shows China’s prominent construction capa-bilities.” l

Assam: Explosive recovered ahead of Modi meetingn Agencies

The Assam police have recovered around 10kg explosive which was sus-pected to be used to carry out a strike in an ‘important o� cial meeting’ there next week which was to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hindu-stan Times reported.

The operations was carried out just a few hours back on Monday.

“In an operation carried out by the Assam police on the information pro-vided by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), 10kg explosive has been recovered from a train at Rangia junc-tion. Rangia is just 50 kms away from Guwahati. The person who was carrying the explosive could not be apprehend-ed,” said a highly placed counter terror source on the condition of annoymity.

On November 29 and 30, the annual directors general of police conference is taking place in Guwahati. It will be addressed by the Modi and and home minister Rajnath Singh. l

Buddhist monks and activists stand near lighted candles as they protest against a Myanmar army artillery attack on a Kaichin Independence Army (KIA) training center, in Yangon yesterday. Twenty-three cadets were killed on Wednesday when a shell hit the training center on the outskirts of Laisa, the KIA capital on the border with China in Kachin State REUTERS

This picture taken on Sunday shows the Zangmu Hydropower Station in Gyaca county in Lhoka, or Shannan prefecture, southwest China’s Tibet region. China has begun generating electricity from Tibet’s biggest ever hydropower project, state-run media reported, the latest dam development on Himalayan rivers that has prompted concern in India AFP

Days after the report, US military spokesman Je� rey Pool called on China and other governments to cease such construction

Ensure accountability for Tazreen It is scandalous that two years on from the Tazreen factory � re which

claimed 112 lives and injured hundreds of workers, that many victims remain uncompensated and there has been little progress in holding

the negligence of the factory’s owners to account.While some payments have

been made via brands, government, and the BGMEA, many victims and families have not received the level of compensation to which they are entitled.

Extensive delays in � nalising charge sheets in the criminal actions which have been � led mean it is still unclear as to what extent the law may be used to hold the factory’s owners to account. There are also grave questions to be asked about the way in which the managing director, Delowar Hossain was able to successfully lobby for bail earlier this year, in ways which created or contributed to serious labour unrest at other factories.

Regardless of this, it is imperative that the government and BGMEA act quickly to ensure victims and their families are properly rehabilitated. Hundreds of workers have been left struggling with no means available to bear essential treatment expenses. There is no reason why they should not be fully compensated.

As custodians of the country’s most important industry, it is a moral imperative upon the government and BGMEA, to ensure factory owners cannot evade their responsibility to compensate workers. It is in the industry’s long-term interest to implement tougher insurance requirements. This would both ensure funds are more readily available when they are needed, and create more incentive for regulations to be properly enforced and accidents prevented.

Bus lanes are more important than VIPs

It is high time for ministers and high ranking public o� cials to change their expectation that they can always travel through tra� c unimpeded.

We have editorialised before on the double standard which allows VIP cars to break tra� c rules and add to the congestion endured by ordinary citizens. It is not acceptable for MPs and o� cials tasked with improving life for the public to exacerbate the already poor tra� c situation on a daily basis for their own bene� t.

By shielding them further from the reality of daily congestion, routine police escorts make it less likely that they will do anything meaningful to improve Dhaka’s dysfunctional tra� c system.

Congestion costs Dhaka’s economy over Tk200bn every year. Reducing it by investing in modern, safer, accessible buses will more than pay for itself by speeding up tra� c � ows for everyone.

Evidence from large cities around the world makes clear that the most cost-e� ective way available to reduce gridlock is to improve the quality and e� ciency of bus services so that commuters are tempted out of cars. The BRTC and government must urgently improve our public transport situation.

Only 5% of Dhaka’s population has access to private cars, but they take up over half of its scarce road space. One properly functioning bus route can easily remove 30 cars o� the road. We should invest in better buses and give them priority on major thoroughfares by introducing and enforcing public transport only bus lanes.

Senior public o� cials should show a lead by giving priority to the needs of the many over the comfort of the few.

All those years agoNovember 10blainewarner“When I say Dhaka went under water, I mean the city literally was like a scene from the � lm Water-world.”

I love Towheed Feroze’s nostalgia for the eighties. Wonderful piece!

Let the bird stay freeNovember 11DreampieSome wise advice here.

“Cricket in Bangladesh truly transcends all forms of logic and reason.”

This is a common phenomenon in a lot of sporting teams to be frank: Spot someone promising, pad the hell out of his/her ego, watch them fall, rinse and repeat.

An eye for an eyeNovember 15

Nazmul Khair The people who are opposed to “eye for an eye” – I want to see when their loved one is killed or harmed. What justice will they then seek?

Ex-MP son arrested for wife’s deathNovember 15Shamima Shereen Azizee Very very very sad, simply stunned!!!

Editorial10 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, November 25, 2014

CODE-CRACKER

ACROSS1 In advance (6)6 Pouring edge (3)9 Sheeplike (5)10 Eternal city (4)11 Inherited character units (5)12 Copy (3)13 Merchant (6)15 Auction (4)18 That time (4)21 Unexpectedly (6)24 Flightless bird (3)25 Let in (5)28 Swarm (4)29 Portion (5)30 Insect (3)31 One’s right wits (6)

DOWN1 Counterfeit (5)2 Girl’s name (3)3 Conclusive (5)4 United (3)5 Remainder (4)6 Burden (4)7 Obstruct (6)8 Look narrowly (4)14 Liable (3)16 Mental acuteness (6)17 Finish (3)19 Fixed residences (5)20 Musical sounds (5)21 Sti� hair (4)22 Song for two (4)23 Back of the neck (4)26 Loud noise (3)27 Frozen treat (3)

CROSSWORD

How to solve: Fill in the blank spaces with the numbers 1 – 9. Every row, column and 3 x 3 box must contain all nine digits with no number repeating.

SUDOKU

How to solve: Each number in our CODE-CRACKER grid represents a di� erent letter of the alphabet. For example, today 1 represents V so � ll V every time the � gure 1 appears.You have two letters in the control grid to start you o� . Enter them in the appro-priate squares in the main grid, then use your knowledge of words to work out which letters go in the missing squares.Some letters of the alphabet may not be used.As you get the letters, � ll in the other squares with the same number in the main grid, and the control grid. Check o� the list of alphabetical letters as you identify them.

CODE-CRACKER

CROSSWORD

SUDOKU

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS

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PEANUTS

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Aren’t we gullible?November 11

IbrahimI don’t know if it is so wrong to want to believe in a better future, but it is true that by believing that future is already here, we are stuck in a world of fairy tales rather than of a Utopian reality.

MadihaI really liked this piece. It’s nice to see a variety in the way the writer approaches his themes. I’ve seen a lot of writing on the Berlin Wall over the years, but nothing that comes at the topic this way. The fact that people from the developing world are happy to buy into the US rhetoric of the world being one ever since 1990 is further proof that we like to believe in misplaced hope rather than face the reality that we are no better o� now (in terms of political stability and equality) than we were then.

Puppetsocks I8 Madiha: Great, we’re not supposed to believe in fairies, but you know the author thinks it’s a “fact that people from the developing world are happy to buy into US rhetoric,” even though it takes a whole lot of inference to see that in the actual article. (And er, its clearly not true given the antipathy shown the US from Latin America to the Mideast ...)

Assuming that was the writers intention

though, I have to wonder why fairies. How on earth did the Cottingley pictures make history – were it not for Conan Doyle, they were a three day wonder.

Pretentious posturing I can ignore, but mor-al equivalence between fraudulent photos and the very real liberation which the fall of the Wall brought to East Europeans is despicable. I’m sure the world would be better if it was more multilat-erally run, but if you want the Soviet Union back you really are away with the fairies.

Jishan Puppetsocks I8: I don’t think anyone here has suggested that they want the Soviet Union back. My reading – and I could be wrong – is that we believe the fall of the Berlin Wall signalled not just the liberation of East Europe but also the end of Cold War politics. Any thorough look at US and Russian foreign policy vis-a-vis each other would break that illusion. Hence, fairy tales to help children sleep at night. Again, just my reading, but I’d say just as valid as yours.

ERFairies are basically fairy tales for children, they don’t exist in reality.

Waqar ER: Not exactly sure what you’re trying to get across, but fairies were never just for fairy tales. And fairy tales do not equal Disney.

Breadbitten Waqar: Why you gotta trample all over the nice lady’s/gentleman’s naivete like that?

Thievin’ StealbergThe � rst photoshop.

It is in the industry’s long term interest

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Give priority to the needs of the many over the comfort of the few

Arrest the bigots, not the victimNovember 11� aisal“It is unacceptable that perpetrators of communal unrest roam free.”

We fully share the view expressed in the editori-al; indeed this misuse of the law by the bigots must stop. The police must be educated and the � awed laws need to be amended to protect the citizens who express their views for a healthy society free from bigotry.

Vikram KhanShows who is actually in power in Bangladesh!

DU authorities helpless against Chhatra LeagueNovember 11

Mr Bunchy PantsMaybe this incident will be the straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back regarding the tightening of BCL’s leash by the government?

RSThe university authorities did the right thing by suspending four students for their unruly act.

Joy: BNP is a party of collaborators

November 14

AnonBig surprise to see Joy trying to ally BNP with war

criminals. #sarcasm

SC warns Bodi, upholds bailNovember 11

Dr Ahsan HabibIs Bodi getting di� erent treatment from courts

compared to the treatment of BNP leaders or common citizens?

Hasan Ali indicted for war crimesNovember 11

roseNow it is time for Hasan Ali to face the court charg-

es since he committed crimes against humanity.

11Op-Ed Tuesday, November 25, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

n Aaqib Md Shatil

From October 16 to October 28 of 1962, the whole of mankind was pushed to the brink of an abyss, as the two most powerful nations

of those days, the United States and Soviet Union, were engaged in a con-frontation, gearing up the possibilities of a nuclear war.

The crisis that is popularly known as the Cuban missile crisis ended successfully, assuring peace all over the world as the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove its mis-siles from Cuba in lieu of a rock-solid guarantee from the US that they would never invade Cuba. President John F Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove their missiles from Turkey.

The Cuban missile crisis was a remarkable diplomatic success, as the two superpowers avoided the most catastrophic war in the history of mankind, without � ring a single shot. The crisis depicted how crucial the role of diplomats could be. The need of peacemakers during decisive negotia-tions was felt on October 28, 1962.

Many do not even know the United Nations played a signi� cant role in pacifying the two nations when they came too close to a nuclear war. The then Secretary General of United Nations U Thant is widely credited for having defused the Cuban missile crisis by interceding between Kennedy and Khrushchev.

Amid widespread criticism, the UN has ensured its impact on many international crises from behind the scene. Shashi Tharoor, an Indian diplomat who served as an under-

secretary general of United Nations pointed it out in his address on UN day, 2012. He said: “Dag Hammarskjöld once described the United Nations as an adventure, a new ‘Santa Maria,’ to use the name of Christopher Columbus’s ship, battling its way through storms and uncharted waters to a new world. But, as he explained, on the shore there were always people who blamed the storm on the ship, rather than on the weather. Five decades later, the metaphor sadly still holds true. The UN continues to sail in uncharted waters, but it is blamed for the squalls that assail it.”

It is not entirely true that the UN is blamed unreasonably. In many cases, it has failed to play a pivotal role to ful� ll the demand of time. For example, during the Liberation War of Bangladesh, the organisation could not make any signi� cant step to save our people.

In Bosnia, UN peacekeepers were equally liable for the massacre of Sre-brenica and the annihilation of at least 8,000 people. In addition to these,

the insigni� cant role of the UN during the Iraq War and the massacre at Gaza strip made it clear as a bell that there is still a long way to go.

Holding Model United Nations conferences is considered as one of the best initiatives to make the UN more e� ective and vibrant. Model United Nations or MUN is an educational simulation and academic competi-tion in which students learns about diplomacy, international relations, and the United Nations. MUN involves and teaches research, public speaking, de-bating, and writing skills, in addition to critical thinking, teamwork, and leadership abilities.

The concept of MUN is very simple. In an MUN, replicating the procedures of UN, delegates from di� erent coun-tries are allocated with their coun-tries and committees. The delegates represent their previously allocated countries and lock themselves in a healthy debate.

MUN conferences around the globe are aimed to produce e� cient future diplomats who can successfully tackle future problems of their country in the international arena with pro� ciency, building some highly skilled peace-makers.

In Bangladesh, activities related to the MUN conference started in 2002 when a number of selected delegates engaged in a debate on the role of their countries on combating terrorism worldwide. Since then, many MUN conferences have been held till date.

One of the most prominent organ-isations to organise MUN conferences in Bangladesh is Dhaka University Model United Nations Association – DUMUNA. DUMUNA has been

credited for holding the largest MUN conference of the country since 2011. This year, the organisation is going to organise the third session of the conference, the DUNMUN 2014 under the theme “Empowering Youth for Sustainable Development”.

DUNMUN 2014 is expecting more than 500 delegates from around the world. The organisers have already received more than 2,500 applications from aspiring youths who want to take part in this largest youth confer-ence of the country. The prime goal of DUNMUN is to make the youths of the nation aware of world politics, as well as to let them learn the diplomatic skills through a discussion on contem-porary issues.

Nevertheless, DUNMUN is com-mitted to providing a platform to the youths of the nation to express their thoughts and show their leadership quality. Through the continuous dialogues between the delegates, they will acquire the necessary skills to develop themselves as peacemakers.

Bangladesh is lagging behind due to the blunders committed by our ine� cient diplomats. Moreover, Bangladesh hardly has any impact in the decision-making level of UN after the resignation of Ameerah Haq from the post of under-secretary general last July. The practice of MUN can be bene� cial for Bangladesh from both aspects. Bangladesh will surely � nd some great peacemakers in the coming days, if the MUN conference is held on a regular basis. l

Aaqib Md Shatil is a blogger, and a Director of Dhaka University National Model United Nations 2014.

The UN sails in choppy waters BIGSTOCK

Blessed are the peacemakers

n William B Milam

I wrote almost a year ago in another Pakistani journal about what I like to call “The Bangladesh paradox.”

The paradox is that, in traditional development theory, Bangladesh should have become, over the past 25 years, a modernised democracy, knocking on the door of entry into the middle income category of developing countries.

Its economy has grown for most of the last two decades around 5-6 % per year, and its social development indices have improved rapidly, and now are generally better than most other South Asian countries except Sri Lanka.

Instead, over those same two dec-ades, Bangladesh has regressed along the democracy/authoritarian axis no matter which of the two major parties was in power (backward in my lexicon means toward authoritarianism, although current Bangladeshi political leaders might de� ne it the other way round).

This regression toward authoritar-ian governance has accelerated since January this year when a one-party election brought a one-party gov-ernment to power. This government seems to be following the script laid out in the authoritarian playbook by closing the political space for any kind

of opposition to be viable in the future. Closing political space usually entails increasing abuse of human rights, and guess what – extra-judicial deaths, disappearances, and harassment of opposition � gures are on the rise in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is, in fact, a contradic-tion to the widely-held modernisation theory of political and economic de-velopment, although not the only such contradiction by any means. China is, perhaps a more prominent example.

This theory has held for much of the last 50-60 years that political de-velopment inevitably follows econom-ic and social development; countries will modernise socially and politically as they grow economically – the faster the economic growth, the faster the political and social modernisation.

Democracy is, under this theory, the ultimate result of constant eco-nomic growth and social development. Underpinning this theory is the notion that economic growth and social development bring forth a middle class that will become larger and more assertive about its interests, and will push to protect those interests through democratisation.

The “Why Nations Fail” school of political development twists this theory somewhat by arguing that the middle class and other vested interests have gained power because they are

connected with the growth of the economy, and they gain entry into the political and economic institutions to keep them from rocking the boat.

Their motivation for insisting on en-try is, of course, to get a larger piece of the pie. But, their ability to assert their interests in these institutions leads to a spreading of the wealth and consensu-al politics, ultimately to modernisation and, maybe, democracy.

As institutions become more inclusive of vested interests in the country, and thus are strengthened, consen-sual politics and democracy can take root. In Bangladesh, however, these institutions were never inclusive. But, with di� erent leadership over the two decades, they could have become so. Alas, they are now being pillaged and reduced by the governing party.

Why have I begun this article with very oversimpli� ed versions of two di� erent, if related, theories of politi-cal development? Because I was struck last week by another paradox involv-ing Bangladesh. President Obama was in Myanmar lecturing the Burmese on their failure to keep up the pace they began with a few years ago in their democratisation process as well as an increase in human rights abuses (mostly involving minorities like the Rohingyas).

At the same time, sub-cabinet level US o� cials in Washington were con-ducting a “partnership dialogue” with a visiting delegation from Myanmar’s next-door neighbour Bangladesh. Nowhere in the joint statement that was issued from that dialogue is there any reference to US concerns (and I know the US has them) about the re-gressions from democratic governance and rising human rights violations in Bangladesh.

I wonder if the government o� cials in Myanmar are as puzzled by this as I am. Did we raise democracy and hu-man rights issues with the Bangladeshi delegation sotto voce (in the corridors or in lower level unrecorded meet-ings)? And if so, does the fact that the president raised these issues publicly from the podium in Myanmar while we whispered them to Bangladeshis in Washington mean anything in our

relations with or interests in the two nations?

Or, is it just an ordinary glitch in communication and coordination in the US government? Why is the slip-page in the democratisation process (but evidently not a backward slide) in Myanmar, a country which has just entered into that process after decades of authoritarian rule, more important than a serious backward slide in Bang-ladesh, which has supposedly been working on democracy for 25 years?

Is Bangladesh lost to democracy anyway, so there is no reason to bother and ru� e feathers when it is a lost cause? And if so, what happened to the notion that the wider spread democra-cy is, the better our national security interests are served?

Well, for Pakistan, these conun-drums must seem even more distant politically than Bangladesh and Myan-mar are geographically. Perhaps some Pakistanis wish their country had the same problems as Bangladesh. After all, democratic vital signs are very weak in Pakistan.

By vital signs I meant the funda-mental bases of real democracy – a literate polity, inclusive institutions that check and balance the tendency of political parties to go too far, a healthy public, and more. Almost all the social development indicators of Pakistan lag even behind some of the poorest

countries of the world. The formal economy stagnates, par-

tially because neither major party can � nd the will or the courage to under-take structural reforms that would be the foundation of an economic revival. The informal economy at least keeps many Bangladeshis alive, but robs the government of needed revenue.

It has always seemed to me that the fundamental questions about Paki-stan’s national security revolve around these issues. A society weakened by a largely illiterate population, a fragile and highly skewed economy, an inabil-ity to pay its own way in the world and a reliance on moral hazard (someone else picking up the tab), and a very di-vided polity which includes thousands (maybe millions) of militant extremists that regard the state as illegitimate, if not apostate, is in serious trouble.

Is it a lost cause? Hardly. But the climb back up the slope to a viable state and nation is getting more dif-� cult every day. Where is the trans-formational leader and party with the strength and knowhow to turn things around and begin that climb? l

William B Milam is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC and a former US diplomat who was Ambassador to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Chief of Mission in Liberia. This article was � rst published in The Friday Times.

n Md Mizanur Rahman

Recently, during a discussion on war crimes trials and the subsequent hartals, some of

my colleagues urged for more capital punishment, therefore more hartals, and more holidays. They were not con-cerned about who was given a death sentence, or why. Their main concern was enjoying a holiday!

Similarly, there are people who are careless about the casualties of � re outbreaks in garment factories, road accidents, hartals, and so on, which routinely claim hundreds of lives in Bangladesh. Does their conscience not bother them when faced with such human deaths?

While seeking for the answer, I recalled the term “collective uncon-scious,” coined by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. He de� ned collective un-conscious as the innate disposition to experience. It represents basic human behaviour and situations. To him, it “belongs to the class of ideas that people at � rst � nd strange, but soon come to possess and use as familiar conceptions.”

How did this originate? Jung as-serts: “It seems to me that their origins can only be explained from assuming them to be deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity. One of the commonest, and at the same time most impressive experienc-es, is the apparent movement of the sun every day.”

In line with Jung’s theory, I observe that we Bangladeshis, in our collective unconscious, are getting nonchalant to the events happening around us. Gradually, the sense of humanity is de-caying from our national imagination. We are becoming narrowly self-cen-tred; we don’t hesitate to gratify our desires, even by means of the life of a fellow human being.

Why is this national transformation happening? The repeated incidences of atrocity, persecution, and other catastrophic events appear shocking to us initially, but gradually become banal. We see everything, but remain motionless, collectively unconscious.

It has two major appalling conse-quences on our social landscape. First, the culture of protest against oppres-sions is diminishing, and therefore the number of persecutions is alarmingly rising. For example, hundreds have died in political violence last year, but many people don’t feel outraged because they were “political activists.”

But, in reality, they were real people with real connections, and their deaths

were felt, and had impacts on certain people. We have noticed indignation among people initially when a college student, Limon, was maimed by RAB, or when journalists Sagar and Runi were brutality killed. But that did not persist for long. After these incidents, so many other killings, disappearanc-es, and mass deaths took place, but people were silent.

Nevertheless, in the history of Bangladesh, particularly since 1947, we have noticed the culture of im-mense protests to safeguard humanity, and to preserve our rights. How many people were killed in 1952 or 1991? Was the death toll more than that of 2013? No, but today, we are silent and “unconscious” to the deaths.

Children subconsciously legitimise these immoral practices and gradually adopt them as their cultural belong-ings. In this respect, I remember an experience of philosopher Tariq Ram-adan, which he has shared in a lecture recently.

He narrated that while teaching in a secondary school in Geneva, he had a student who loved con� ict, and ex-pressed his feelings through violence. Once Ramadan was called from his house and on his arrival, Ramadan found that the student brutally beat his mother.

He was shocked, and when searched for the reason behind this, he discovered that beatings were a common practice in that student’s family. The student’s father would often beat them. Ramadan explained that frequent experiences of violence made his student’s actions justi� ed to him, and therefore he found beating his mother natural.

I fear that frequent incidents of vio-lence and persecution might establish them as a justi� ed means for children in Bangladesh. They might regard vi-olence as morally legitimate. The day might not be far when a child would say after killing another: “I have done nothing wrong!”

Therefore, to escape the situation, we have to develop a culture of empathy. We have to develop the art of compassion in our national imagination. In Buddhist tradition, it is maintained that compassion starts from the self. We ourselves have to generate compassion, and teach our children to do the same. l

Md Mizanur Rahman teaches at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University, Gopalgonj.

Another Bangladesh paradox?

Where is the transformational leader and party with the strength and knowhow to turn things around?

Bangladesh is lagging behind due to the blunders committed by our ine� cient diplomats

Humanity is decaying from our national imagination

Hundreds have died in political violence, but many people don’t feel outraged

Too used to violence

12 DHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Sport1413 Milan derby ends all square on Mancini return

Federer legend grows with Davis Cup win

14 Hamilton wins Abu Dhabi GP, claims world title

Did you know?Liverpool have

conceded an average of 1.5

goals per game this season in the PL (18 in 12 games), their

worst ever rate

Bangladesh cricketers Anamul Haque, Al-Amin and Imrul Kayes arrive at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

City face KO, Di Matteo up against Chelsea old boysn AFP, Paris

Manchester City welcome Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Tuesday needing a win to stay in contention for a last-16 place.

In Germany, Chelsea go to Schalke, managed by Roberto Di Matteo who was in charge of Chelsea when they won the Champions League in 2012.

CSKA Moscow (RUS) v Roma (ITA)A win for the Russians, behind closed doors as they serve a spectator ban, will put them in pole position to qualify for the knockout round behind group winners Bayern Munich. CSKA will be buoyed by their 2-1 win at Manchester City last time out and will be desperate to avenge a 5-1 loss to Roma in their tournament opener.

Roma, like CSKA on four points after four games, will secure quali� cation if they win and City fail to defeat Bayern.

The Italians warmed-up for the trip to Moscow with a come-from-behind 2-1 win against Atalanta while Russian champions CSKA have lost their last two domestic games. Roma are missing on-loan defender Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa who has a thigh injury.

 Man City (ENG) v Bayern Munich (GER)English Premier League champions City, with just two points from four games, will be eliminated if they lose while a draw will keep their hopes alive only if there is also a draw in Moscow.

Only two teams have taken two points or fewer from their opening four group games and still managed to progress from this stage of the Champions League --   Lokomotiv

Moscow (2002/03, 1 point) and Porto (2004/05, 2 points).

Apoel Nicosia (CYP) v Barcelona (ESP)Apoel have enjoyed mixing it with the big boys in Group F, even though they have little to show for their e� orts beyond a single point and just one goal, along with three 1-0 defeats.

Despite being in the middle of a 13-match unbeaten league run, even home advantage in Cyprus can a� ord them little hope of overcoming the might of Barcelona, who are already assured of their place in the last 16, while all eyes will be on Lionel Messi as he aims for a record-breaking 72nd Champions League goal.

 Paris Saint-Germain (FRA) v Ajax (NED)This is a � xture which has anti-climax written all over it, with Paris Saint-Germain already assured of a place in the last 16 and Ajax eliminated without having won a single match.

PSG are 31 matches unbeaten at home in UEFA competition, dating back to November 2006 and will be expecting to improve on the 1-1 draw in Amsterdam in their opening group match.

 Schalke (GER) v Chelsea (ENG)Schalke coach Roberto Di Matteo faces the Chelsea team he guided to their � rst ever Champions League crown in 2012. 

Since taking over at the Veltins-Arena, the former Italian mid� elder has lifted the club up to sixth in the Bundesliga following a 3-2 weekend victory over second-placed Wolfsburg. 

Chelsea are riding high at the top of the Premier League and unbeaten in all competitions as Jose Mourinho looks to guarantee quali� cation and win the group with one match to play. l

5 in 5 for Rupganj, Kalabagan CA win nail biter in DPLn Mazhar Uddin

Jahurul Islam’s 95 guided Legends of Rupganj to their � fth consecutive vic-tory in the Dhaka Premier League (DPL) as they beat Victoria Sporting Club by seven wickets yesterday. Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club and Kalabagan Crick-et Academy also claimed full three points from their respective matches on the day.

Legends of Rupganj v Victoria Sporting Club, BKSP-3National discard Jahurul missed a glo-rious opportunity to register his � rst hundred in the season, but his 127-ball 95, that included nine fours, was enough to see Rupganj cruise to their target of 192. their foreign recruit Ashar Zaidi was unbeaten on 44 as the league toppers landed their � fth win on a trot.

Earlier, fast bowler Mohammad Shahid bagged four wickets to restrict Victoria to 191/7 in their 50 overs. Vic-toria skipper Nadif Chowdhury scored highest 57 while coming down the or-der Enamul Haque Jr blasted 42 from just 13 balls.

Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club v Brothers Union, BKSP-4The Dhanmondi based club registered a comfortable seven wickets win over Brothers Union as the latter managed to post a mediocre 219/8 in their allot-ted overs. Opener Yasir Ali made the highest 36 as left-arm spinner Saju Dat-ta picked up four wickets along with Nahidul Islam taking two.

In reply, Sheikh Jamal opener Mai-shukur Rahman smashed 87 o� 131 balls while skipper Shahriar Nafees scored an unbeaten 75 to help reach the Dhanmondi out� t to their target in 48.4 overs.

Kalabagan CA v Prime Doleshwar SC, FatullahFormer Bangladesh captain and wick-et-keeper Khaled Masud Pilot once again appeared as the lucky charm for

Kalabagan CA as the coach-cum-play-er’s presence in the playing XI saw them bag their second win in a row.

Their dramatic run produced yet an-other close encounter this time against Prime Doleshwar as the title contend-ers went down by four runs chasing a modest 208.

Doleshwar lost seven wickets to make 204 in 50 overs in the face of some tight bowling and � elding from Kalabagan. Opening batsman Mehedi Maruf scored highest 42 for Doleshwar while Me-hedy Hasan took 2/27 from nine overs for Kalabagan.

Earlier, despite a 95-run opening stand Kalabagan managed only 208 be-fore getting bowled out. Irfan Shukkur made 75 but had no real contributions from his teammates. Left-arm spinner Elias Sunny picked four wickets while Habibur Rahman took three wickets for Doleshwar. l

Tigers rest Al Amin as teams reach Dhakan Mazhar Uddin

Bangladesh and Zimbabwe teams returned to Dhaka yesterday afternoon and are scheduled to train at the Sher-e-Bangla National stadium today ahead of their series decider on Wednesday.

The Tigers, who tasted sour defeat one after another for the � rst 10 months

of the year, staged great character and � ghting mentality to humble the visitors so far in the home series as they return from Chittagong in a chirpy mood.

Bangladesh Cricket Board also announced the squad for the third day-night a� air at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium and the only name missing was of pacer Al Amin Hossain.

The unchanged Bangladesh team are eager to secure the � ve match one-day series and look forward to continue their winning streak which will also give them the space to test some other players in the last two ODIs.

The Tigers won last Test of the three-match series scheduled in Chittagong to complete their � rst ever longer

version whitewash at home while they outplayed Zimbabwe in the two limited over games to leave the port city on a happy note.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe are keen to change their fate and end their tour with some positives as their skipper Elton Chigumbura said they will “bounce back in Dhaka.” l

BRIEF SCORESLegends of Rupganj v Victoria SCVictoria 191/7 in 50 oversNadif Chowdhury 57, Enamul Haque Jr 42*Mohammad Shahid 4/30Legends of Rupganj 192/3 in 46.1 oversJahurul Islam 95, Ashar Zaidi 44*

Rupganj won by 7 wicketsSheikh Jamal v Brothers UnionBrothers Union 219/8 in 50 oversYasir Ali 36, Rumman Ahmed 34Saju Datta 4/40Sheikh Jamal 221/3 in 48.4 oversJahurul Islam 95, Shahriar Nafees 75*

Sheikh Jamal won by 7 wicketsKalabagan CA v Prime DoleshwarKalabagan CA 208/10 in 49.4 oversIrfan Shukkur 72Elias Sunny 4/36, Habibur Rahman 3/51Prime Doleshwar 204/7 in 50 oversMehedi Maruf 42, Jubair Ahmed 41Mehedy Hasan 2/27

Kalabagan CA won by 4 runs

Abahani face uphill task in King’s Cupn Shishir Hoque

Abahani Limited face an uphill task to move to the semi� nals of the King’s Cup as they take on I-League’s Pune FC in their last group match at the Changlimithang Stadium in Thimphu, Bhutan at 3pm BST today.

The Sky Blues will take the � eld with very little chance of progressing further as they not only need to win, but win with a di� erence of � ve goals

and that result is very unlikely against the Indian top side.

With three wins out of three Pune already booked their ticket for the last-four as Group A champions while Manang Marshyangdi Club (MMC), who came back from two goals down to draw 2-2 with Abahani, thrashed Ugyen Academy 5-1 yesterday which made things complicated for the Bangladesh giants.

MMC, the Nepal A-Division League

champions, have seven points from four matches while Abahani have only four.

The four-time professional league champions Abahani began their campaign with a 2-1 win over Assam Electric before losing their second match against a lower ranked Bhutan Ugyan Academy.

They blew up an easy win against MMC which eventually will be costing them heavily. lMSC appoint

Joshi as coachn Raihan Mahmood

Dhaka Mohammedan Sporting Club Ltd named their former winger Kazi Jashimuddin Ahmed Joshi as the coach for the upcoming season while former mid� elder Abdul Qayum Sentu be his assistant for the traditional Black and White out� t.

Mohammedan’s appointed Portu-guese coach Jose Rui Capela Batista last year following the short stints from Saiful Bari Titu and Jewel Rana and the club � nished 4th in the point table of the Nitol-Tata Premier Football League last season.

Joshi, a brilliant left winger in his prime time, was the assistant to Hasnuzzaman Bablu back in 1999 when Mohammedan won the premier league title. He was also the in charge of the team in 2005 before guiding Biyani Ba-zar in the professional league in 2009-10 season. He guided the U-16 and U-18 team of Dhaka Mohammedan to the titles in the last two seasons.

Joshi looked forward to the chal-lenge and said, “I will not comment on the team, what I can say Mohammedan is a traditional crowd puller and I will try to play good football, its a big chal-lenge for me but I am con� dent that I will be able to inspire the team.” l

Bayern Munich players joke with Franck Ribery (2nd R, front) during a training session in Munich yesterday. Bayern Munich faces the squad of Manchester City in their Group E Champions League match in Manchester today REUTERS

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE 13Tuesday, November 25, 2014

UEFA Champions League Ten Action11:00PMCSKA Moscow v. Roma 1:00AMManchester City v Bayern Ten Sports11:00PM Bate v Porto 1:00AM Schalke v Chelsea Ten HD1:00AM APOEL v Barcelona

DAY’S WATCH

No date for Schumi’s recovery: manager Michael Schumacher’s manager Sabine Kehm said Sunday there is still no clear time-frame for the Formula One legend’s full recovery. “That is not possible to say in this situation,” Kehm told German broadcaster RTL. “Michael is making progress appropriate to the severity of his situation, but it will be a di� cult and long process.” Schumacher su� ered severe head injuries while ski-ing with his family last December in the French Alps, leaving him in a coma for six months. But he has been recovering at his home in Gland, Switzerland since June.  Kehm again stressed that Schumacher’s family are grateful for the constant � ood of well wishes from fans of the seven-time world champion. “I can only say again that the family is very happy and touched by the sympathetic messages,” said Kehm. “I believe that positive energy does them good. We appreciate the condolences from around the world.”

–AFP

United‘s Falcao back in trainingManchester United forward Ra-damel Falcao is back in training after overcoming a niggling calf problem, the 28-year-old con� rmed on Twitter on Sunday. Falcao, on loan at Old Tra� ord from Ligue 1 side Monaco, has not featured since a 2-2 draw against West Bromwich Albion on Oct. 20. On Thursday, manager Louis van Gaal announced Falcao could be out for a further two weeks after su� ering a “new injury” but the forward could now feature in next weekend’s game against Hull City. “Back to training 100 percent and ready to help the team in the next games,” said the Colombian, who has scored once in four matches for the club. United climbed to fourth in the Premier League after beating Arsenal 2-1 away on Saturday.

–Reuters

Alonso overcome by emotion on Ferrari farewell Fernando Alonso conceded that the emotional strain of his � nal race for Ferrari took its toll on him before he even started Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, in which he � nished ninth. The result, in a race that carried double points for the � rst time, not only cost Ferrari a chance to claim third place in the championship ahead of Williams, but also demoted the two-time champion Spaniard sixth in the drivers’ standings. Ferrari also completed a winless season, their � rst since 1993. “It was emotional. The worst moment was on the grid, when I jumped in the car, we � red up the engine, and the mechanics stayed there with the blankets for the last minute, with 20 seconds to go,” said Alonso.

–AFP

Revolution and Galaxy gain advantage in MLSJermaine Jones grabbed an 85th minute winner as the New England Revolution beat the New York Red Bulls 2-1 in the � rst leg of Major League Soccer’s East-ern Conference � nal on Sunday. The pair will meet again on Saturday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts to decide who will meet the Seattle Sounders or the LA Galaxy in the MLS Cup on Dec. 7. The Galaxy beat Seattle 1-0 in their � rst-leg at the StubHub Cen-ter -- Marcelo Sarvas’ 52nd minute goal separating the teams. The Revolution, who had never previously won at Red Bull Arena, took the lead in the 17th minute when Teal Bunbury cut in from the right � ank and superbly curled the ball past New York keeper Luis Robles. The Red Bulls were back on level terms 10 minutes later with Peguy Luyindula’s shot, at the second attempt, coming out o� the bar and Bradley Wright-Phillips heading in his 31st goal of the season. English striker Wright-Phillips missed a good opportunity just before the break when he could not keep down a header from close range after nice work from Thierry Henry.

–Reuters

QUICK BYTES Clarke to miss vital India Test lead-up game n AFP, Sydney

Injured Australian skipper Michael Clarke said Monday he will miss a vi-tal lead-up game, raising fresh doubts about his chances of playing in next month’s � rst Test against India.

Clarke, who was named in a 12-man squad Monday subject to a � tness test on his left hamstring, was selected to play for a Cricket Australia XI against the tourists in Adelaide on Friday.

Clarke later con� rmed that he will not be playing in that match, placing his position in the Test squad in doubt.

“I’ve been pulled out of, or passed un� t to play the game in Adelaide,” Clarke told reporters in Sydney.

“The medical team in the Australian cricket team have ruled me out of that game.I would hope with my experience that the selectors, my team-mates, Cricket Australia, will all respect my opinion,” he said.

Clarke has been struggling to avoid missing his � rst home Test match after injuring the hamstring in the recent one-day series against South Africa in Perth. He also continues to undergo daily treat-ment for an ongoing back condition. l

Federer legend grows with Davis Cup win n AFP, Lille

It’s taken him 16 years as a pro, but Rog-er Federer � nally has won all there is to win in tennis -- well almost.

All four Grand Slam titles -- a record 17 in total -- six ATP year-end titles, 23 Masters Series, Olympic gold and now the Davis Cup for Switzerland.

The Olympic title of course was in the doubles with Stan Wawrinka in Beijing in 2008 and he has yet to match great rival Rafael Nadal and Andre Agassi as the only men to have won all four Grand Slam titles, Olympic sin-gles gold and the Davis Cup during the course of their careers.

But still – it’s an astonishing record for a player many consider to be the greatest of all time. The Davis Cup win was arguably the hardest of them all for Federer to win, involving as it does oth-er players and doubles action.

Asked to compare his feelings in winning Wimbledon for the � rst time

in 2003 and what he felt on Sunday after supplying the point Switzerland needed to win the Davis Cup � nal over France he replied: “You can’t compare.

“When I won Wimbledon, it was a total shock, honestly. Davis Cup is something that I knew was possible at some stage in my career.

“Of course, there was the pressure of being able to manage all this and make everyone happy with all the support we had for the team and everything. So it is a totally di� erent feeling.

“Also I was not alone on the court. This changes totally everything.”

Federer’s � rst tournament as a pro-fessional was in the Swiss ski resort of Gstaad in 1998, where he lost in the round of 32.

Although rated as one of best juniors in the world, there was no real hint at that time what tennis was about to witness as he entered the profession-al sphere. It wasn’t until he defeated Pete Sampras at Wimbledon in a fourth

round match in � ve sets in 2001 that his true potential became clearer to see.

Still, he struggled to make much headway in the Grand Slam events and question marks were raised when he lost miserably to Luis Horna in the � rst round of the French Open in 2003.

Federer came up alongside a genera-tion of young champions who achieved immediate success, like Lleyton Hewitt, Andy Roddick and Marat Sa� n. While his contemporaries were shooting up the rankings and winning Grand Slam titles, he struggled to break through.

“I don’t want to say I was frustrated, but I didn’t understand why it wasn’t happening for me,” Federer said last year. “I was far enough behind that I was, ‘OK, let’s push myself a little more’.”

A month after his Paris � op, that change of attitude reaped immediate dividends as Federer produced a ma-jestic display over the Wimbledon fort-night, defeating Mark Philippoussis in straight sets in the � nal.

The Federer era had begun in ear-nest and he dominated tennis over the next four years winning 10 Grand Slam titles. On two occasions – in 2004 and 2007 – he won three out of four. By that time Spanish claycourt king Rafael Nadal had come along to become the player Federer has always seen as his greatest rival.

Nadal ruled at Roland Garros and it took his shock defeat at the hands of Robin Soderling in 2009 to clear the way for Federer to � nally win the French Open, thus completing the Grand Slam set.

By that time he had won Olympic gold with Wawrinka in 2008 and by Wimble-don 2012 he had taken his haul of Grand Slam titles to an all-time best of 17.

Still the Davis Cup remained out of his grasp and, at 33, time was clearly running out when he and Wawrinka decided, after the latter won the Aus-tralian Open at the start of the year, that they would commit totally to playing

the Davis Cup this year. They swept past a Novak Djokovic-less Serbia in the � rst round, edged a nervy outing against Ka-zakhstan in the quarter-� nals and com-fortably saw o� Italy in the semis.

France away in the � nal was a dif-ferent prospect, however, with players of the calibre of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gael Mon� ls on the other side of the net.

A fractious match against Wawrin-ka in the semi-� nals of the ATP World Tour Finals when the two argued and Federer damaged his back did not help. But all that was swept aside in Lille as Switzerland became just the 14th coun-try to win the Davis Cup.

“For me personally, obviously I’m unbelievably happy because I’ve been playing in this competition for proba-bly almost 15 years now,” he said.

“At the end of the day I wanted it more for the guys and for (coach) Sev-erin (Luthi) and Stan, the sta� and ev-erybody involved.  This is one for the boys.” l

A picture shows the frontpages of Swiss newspapers in Lausanne yesterday. Roger Federer gave Switzerland and himself a � rst Davis Cup title in Lille, pounding Richard Gasquet of France in straight sets to ensure the winning point AFP

Marseille return to top with victoryn Reuters

Late goals from Andre-Pierre Gignac and Michy Batshuayi helped Olym-pique de Marseille return to the top of Ligue 1 with an entertaining 3-1 victory against Girondins Bordeaux on Sunday.

Gignac’s glancing header in the 85th minute and Batshuayi’s simple � n-ish after 89 minutes rescued all three points after Marseille’s Mario Lemina had equalised Thomas Toure’s opening goal for the visitors.

Elsewhere on Sunday, Nantes climbed above Bordeaux into fourth despite being held to a goalless draw at home to sixth- placed St Etienne while Montpellier climbed to ninth after a 2-0 win at home to Toulouse.

Marseille’s win left them one point

ahead of Paris St Germain after the champions won 3-2 at Metz on Friday and four points ahead of Olympique Lyon who drew 0-0 at Bastia on Satur-day.

In a goalless but pulsating � rst half at the Stade Velodrome, both sides cre-ated chances with Marseille’s in-form forward Gignac and attacking mid� eld-

er Florian Thauvin causing the visiting defence numerous problems.

The hosts had won their previous � ve home league games and continued to pile on the pressure after halftime but were stunned when Toure slotted home in the 55th minute after being af-forded too much space in the box.

Marseille’s Abdelaziz Barrada had a goal ruled out for o� side before they � nally scored the goal their play war-ranted when Lemina headed home to restore parity in the 60th minute.

Bordeaux could have taken the lead but for wasteful � nishing from Toure and Wahbi Khazri and just as a draw beckoned, Gignac nodded home his 11th league goal of the season and Bat-shuayi’s goal sealed a 10th league victo-ry in 14 matches this season. l

LIGUE 1Marseille 3-1 Bordeaux Lemina 60, Gignac 85,Batshuayi 89 Toure 55

Nantes 0-0 Saint-Etienne

Montpellier 2-0 ToulouseMounier 37, S. Camara 87

McIlroy eyes green jacket after stellar 2014n Reuters, Dubai

As he picked up the European money list trophy for the second time in three seasons on Sunday, Rory McIlroy had two words to say when asked for his goals for 2015: “Green Jacket”.

To golfers, that phrase means one thing -- winning the U.S. Masters, the only major championship to elude the Northern Irishman.

“It’s not something I thought possi-ble, I will work hard and make sure I’m ready for that,” McIlroy told reporters after tying for second at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, the Euro-pean Tour season-ender.

Winning in Augusta will be tough -- no European has done it since Jose Ma-ria Olazabal in 1999 -- yet world num-ber one McIlroy is well equipped to end the drought after a season in which he

claimed a maiden British Open title, a second U.S. PGA crown and two other European Tour victories.

“In terms of ball striking, I’ve driv-en it better, which is a huge part of my game,” McIlroy told reporters.

“When I drive it well I can give my-self shorter irons into greens and more opportunities for birdies. My mid-range putting has been very good this year.”

“I used to be uncomfortable. There’s added scrutiny and there’s added criticism,” said McIlroy. “But I learned to deal with it. It’s just part of the title. I want to keep it for as long as I possibly can.”

McIlroy’s 2014 resurgence happened despite o� -course dramas. He split up with his � ancee, tennis player Caroline Wozniacki, and is involved in a legal dispute with his former agents which led him to miss some tournaments. l

Baseball training course initiated at Commerce Collegen Raihan Mahmood

A month long baseball training course organised by the Bangladesh Baseball-Softball Association was inaugurated at the Dhaka Commerce College in Mirpur yesterday.

Japanese trainer Hiroki Wateneb introduced the game to the trainees as around hundred students including a good number of girls also attended the programme.

Professor Abu Sayeed, the principal inaugurated the programme as the chief guest.

Aminul Islam Liton, the general secretary of baseball association, convener of college’s sports committee, assistant professor Hasan ur Rashid, college teachers Waliullah and Faiz Ahmed also spoke on the occasion. l

Michael Clarke (capt), Brad Haddin, Ryan Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Johnson, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Chris Rogers, Peter Siddle, Steve Smith, David Warner, Shane Watson.

SQUAD

Hiroki Wateneb, the Japanese baseball trainer demonstrates a skill to a trainee of the Dhaka Commerce College in Mirpur yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE

Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland poses with the European tour championship trophy after the � nal round of the golf DP World Tour Championship on Sunday AFP

SportDHAKA TRIBUNE14

Liverpool misery goes on, Spurs winn Reuters, London

Crystal Palace heaped more misery on a mentally frail Liverpool when they came from behind to win 3-1 in the Premier League on Sunday, six months after e� ectively ending the northern club’s title hopes when they drew 3-3.

Liverpool � nished second last sea-son but, like Tottenham Hotspur who came back to win 2-1 at Hull City late on, they have started this term poorly and are looking to climb out of mid-ta-ble and back up the standings.

While Spurs moved from 12th to 10th, Liverpool dropped a place to 12th after again losing at Palace, where their hopes of winning the title were so spectacular-ly dashed last May when they let slip a 3-0 lead as Palace fought back to level.

This time they wasted a lead they took in the second minute when Rick-ie Lambert scored his � rst goal for the club following his move from South-ampton in the close season.

Instead of building on it, they crashed to a third successive league de-feat as Palace ended a run of � ve league games without a win.

Goals from Dwight Gayle after 17 minutes, then Joe Ledley and a superb curling free kick from skipper Mile Je-

dinak in the last 12 minutes, gave Pal-ace the points which lifted them out of the bottom three and up to 15th on 12 points -- two behind Liverpool.

If Palace gave a Neil Warnock-like performance then Spurs gave a typical Spurs performance, especially in the � rst half when they � attered to deceive and Hull looked the better side.

But Spurs ended the happier despite having to wait until the 90th minute for Christian Eriksen’s winner against the home side, who had three former Spurs players -- Michael Dawson, Tom Huddlestone and Jake Livermore -- in their starting lineup.

Inevitably, it was one of them who scored against his old club with Liver-more cracking home from outside the box after eight minutes. l

Valencia stunned after derby defeatn Reuters, Madrid

Valencia lost ground on La Liga’s pace-setters when they slipped to a surprise 2-1 reverse at mid-table city rivals Le-vante on Sunday.

Victor Casadesus nodded Levante in front in the 58th minute at their Ciutat de Valencia stadium before Dani Parejo levelled in the 74th when he was sent clear by Alvaro Negredo.

Substitute Jose Luis Morales struck the winner for the home side moments later when he ran at the visiting de-fence and curled a superb shot into the top corner. Negredo, who is on loan at Valencia from Manchester City, had a chance to equalise again eight minutes from time but sent his header straight

at keeper Diego Marino.“Derby days are always special days

and we had to work hard to get the three points,” Morales said in an interview with Spanish television.

“Protecting our top-� ight status will

happen in home matches and above all with the support of our fans. It could be the best goal I have scored in my career.”

Real Madrid lead on 30 points after Saturday’s 4-0 stroll at La Liga debutants Eibar, with a Cristiano Ronaldo double taking the Portugal forward’s tally for the season to 20 goals in 11 appearances.

Barcelona are two points behind their arch rivals in second thanks to Saturday’s 5-1 drubbing of � fth-placed Sevilla, which was decorated by Lionel Messi netting a hat-trick to set an all-time La Liga record of 253 goals.

Levante’s victory lifted them out of the relegation zone to 13th place on 12 points, two points behind Rayo Valleca-no, who won 1-0 at home to Celta Vigo in Sunday’s early kicko� . l

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Inter Milan coach Roberto Mancini waves to photographers before the start of their Italian Serie A match against AC Milan at the San Siro stadium in Milan on Sunday REUTERS

Struggling Hamburg win to escape bottom three n AFP, Berlin

Hamburg escaped the Bundesliga’s bottom three on Sunday with a 2-0 win at home to 10-man Werder Bremen, which pushed Borussia Dortmund back into the relegation places.

Latvia striker Artjoms Rudnevs was Hamburg’s hero as he netted his � rst goal of the season on 84 minutes after coming o� the bench to put the hosts ahead.

Bremen goalkeeper Raphael Wolf then pushed the ball into his own net in the third minute of stoppage time.

“That was three important points for us,” said Hamburg coach Joe Zinnbauer.

Bremen � nished with 10 men after

captain Clemens Fritz was sent o� for a second yellow card on 90 minutes, while the result left Bremen 17th after the 101st north German derby.

The victory, only Hamburg’s third of the season, lifts then up to 15th and drops last season’s runners-up Dort-mund down into 16th following their 2-2 draw against Paderborn on Saturday after throwing away a two-goal lead. l

Real Madrid to play exhibition matches in Melbournen Reuters, Melbourne

European champions Real Madrid will play exhibition matches with an En-glish Premier League side and a Serie A club at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground next year, organisers said on Monday.

The teams will play each other in three � xtures at the 100,000-seat MCG from July 18-24 as part of the Inter-national Champions Cup, a series of pre-season matches involving top Eu-ropean clubs, Victoria state sports min-ister Damien Drum told reporters.

The other teams will be named in coming weeks. l

n Reuters, Milan

Roberto Mancini’s return to the Inter Milan bench after a six-year gap ended in a 1-1 draw against old rivals AC Milan in Serie A on Sunday.

Napoli coach Rafael Benitez was fum-ing after his side squandered a 2-0 lead in a 3-3 draw with Cagliari while Torino missed their � fth consecutive penalty on their way to a 1-0 home defeat by Sas-suolo.

Thirty-seven-year-old Udinese for-ward Antonio Di Natale scored his 200th Serie A goal in his 400th appearance and hapless Parma lost again.

Milan scored with their � rst shot on target when Jeremy Menez sidefooted the ball past Samir Handanovic on the volley in the 23rd minute.

Joel Obi levelled with a low shot from the edge of the area in the 61st minute following a poor clearance by Cristian Zapata before Stephan El Shaarawy hit the bar for Milan and Mauro Icardi for In-ter in a frantic � nal 20 minutes between the two fallen giants.

Gonzalo Higuain, with his seventh goal in the last � ve league games, and Gokhan Inler put third-placed Napoli 2-0 ahead in less than half an hour but Victor Ibarbo pulled one back with some delightful footwork and Diego Farias equalised two minutes after halftime.

In an open second half, with Cagliari coach Zdenek Zeman throwing caution to the wind in his inimitable style, Jon-athan De Guzman put Napoli back in front with a looping header but the Sar-dinians grabbed a deserved point when Farias turned in Ibarbo’s cross.

“I’m certainly not happy to see these presents after so much work. We had the game in our hands and we gave it away,”

Benitez told reporters after his side lost ground on leading pair Juventus and AS Roma, who both won on Saturday.

Di Natale became only the seventh player to reach the 200 goal mark al-though it was not enough for Udinese who were held 1-1 by Chievo.

Hapless Cesena substitute Constantin Nica came o� the bench and scored an own goal with his � rst touch of the game as he diverted a cross into the net to gift fourth-placed Sampdoria a 1-1 draw.

The Sea Horses had taken the lead when Stefano Lucchini scrambled home against his former club from Franco Brienza’s free kick.

Bottom club Parma, beaten 7-0 by Ju-ventus in their last game, went down 2-0 at home to Empoli.

Torino were jeered o� after Juan Sanchez Mino saw his penalty saved by Andrea Consigli on the half hour and An-tonio Floro Flores headed Sassuolo’s late winner from a corner. l

Milan derby ends all square on Mancini return

SERIE ATorino 0-1 Sassuolo Floro Flores 87

Udinese 1-1 ChievoDi Natale 45+1 Radovanovic 74

Parma 0-2 Empoli Vecino 45+1, Tavano 56

Cesena 1-1 Sampdoria Lucchini 60 Nica 77-og

Verona 1-2 Fiorentina Lopez 39 Rodriguez 16, Cuadrado 62

Napoli 3-3 Cagliari Higuain 11, Inler 30, Ibarbo 38,De Guzman 62 Farias 47, 68

AC Milan 1-1 Inter MilanMenez 23 Obi 61

Hamilton wins Abu Dhabi GP, claims world titlen AFP, Abu Dhabi

Lewis Hamilton clinched his second drivers’ world championship and be-came the � rst British multiple champi-on for 46 years when he won Sunday’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The 29-year-old Englishman, who took his � rst title in 2008 with McLar-en, won not only the 55-laps race, but also his private duel with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg, who su� ered prolonged problems with his car after making a poor start from pole position.

Having started from the prime spot on the grid for the 11th time this year, Rosberg was comprehensively out-paced immediately as Hamilton surged clear to control the race with a well-judged and dominant performance.

Hamilton’s victory was his 11th of the season and the 33rd of his re-cord-breaking career and secured a re-cord 16th victory of the season for the Mercedes team.

Rosberg � nished 14th, lapped by Hamilton and bitterly disappointed.

As Hamilton roared his delight – “Whoooah world champion – Oh my God, cannot believe it – thanks every-one” – Prince Harry responded on team radio. “Thank you very much Lewis for not letting the British public down, you are a legend.”

Hamilton became the fourth British driver to win more than one champion-ship, joining Jackie Stewart, Jim Clark and Graham Hill, the last man to suc-ceed in 1968.

Daniel Ricciardo was fourth for Red Bull ahead of Briton Jenson Button in what may be his last race with McLar-en, Nico Hulkenberg and his Force In-dia team-mate Sergio Perez.

Four-time world champion Sebas-tian Vettel � nished eighth in his � nal race with Red Bull, one position ahead of the man he replaces at Ferrari next season, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari. l

Arab footballers beat Jewish rivals in tense grudge match n AFP, Sakhnin

Under the eyes of hundreds of police and private security guards the Israeli premier league’s only Arab club beat mainly-Jewish rivals Beitar Jerusalem 1-0 on Sunday.

Despite on-pitch brawling between Beitar and Bnei Sakhnin players in the seventh minute of extra time, police re-ported only minor incidents o� the � eld.

Police originally banned the game from being held in the Arab town of Sakhnin due to safety concerns after a series of deadly attacks in east Jerusa-lem and the occupied West Bank. 

There is a history of racist violence by some Beitar supporters who have clashed with Sakhnin fans in the past.

But on Friday they rescinded the ban, saying that security had been “sig-ni� cantly” improved at Bnei’s Doha Stadium, which was built with millions of dollars in donations from Qatar. l

LA LIGARayo Vallecano 1-0 Celta VigoBueno 20

Levante 2-1 Valencia Casadesus 57, Morales 74 Parejo 73

Elche 2-2 Cordoba Lomban 63-pen, Fidel 12,Jonathas 75 Cartabia 60

Villarreal 2-1 Getafe Gaspar 38, Moreno 43 Lacen 61

BUNDESLIGAHamburg 2-0 Werder BremenRudnevs 84, Wolf 90+3-og

VfB Stuttgart 0-1 Augsburg Verhaegh 72-P

EPLCrystal Palace 3-1 Liverpool Gayle 17, Ledley 78, Lambert 2Jedinak 81

Hull 1-2 Tottenham Livermore 8 Kane 61, Eriksen 90

Argentina’s former player Claudio Caniggia (R) greets Brazil’s former player Athirson before their international masters friendly match in Natal on Sunday REUTERS

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton (C) of Britain celebrates with his teammates on the pit lane after winning the Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix at the Yas Marina racetrack in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Sunday AP

Tottenham’s Christian Eriksen celebrates scoring the winner during their EPL match against Hull City in Hull on Sunday REUTERS

ExhibitionLife is HereBy Kanak Chanpa ChakmaTime: 12pm – 8pm, Bengal Art Lounge

Group Art Exhibition: Artworks by 40 Eminent ArtistsTime: 3:00pm – 8:30pmBishwo Shahitto Kendro Art Gallery

Film Interstellar, Gone Girl, AnnabelleOnek Sadher MoynaThe Maze RunnerInto The StormBlockbuster CinemasJamuna Future Park

RoarShopno Je TuiDracula UntoldPlanes : Fire & Rescue(3D)Pipra BiddaStar Cineplex, Level 8,Bashundhara City

DHAKA TRIBUNE Entertainment Tuesday, November 25, 2014 15

The CoreZee Studio, 9:35pm

The only way to save Earth from catastrophe is to drill down to the core and set it spinning again.

127 HoursStar Movies, 11:58pm

A mountain climber becomes trapped under a boulder while canyoneering alone near Moab, Utah and resorts to desperate mea-sures in order to survive.

MaverickHBO De� ned, 5:55pm

Bret Maverick, needing money for a poker tournament, faces various comic mishaps and challenges, in-cluding a charming woman thief.

Jazz concert by a German group in the capital Band Thaerichen’s Tentett to perform today n Entertainment Desk

A leading German band Thaerichen’s Tentett will present a colourful mix of jazzy sounds with unforeseen and un-predictable elements at the main audi-torium of Shilpakala Academy today at 7:30pm.

The band is celebrating their � f-teenth anniversary with a maiden tour in Bangladesh and India.

The musical director, Nicolai Thaer-

ichen, founded the band in 1999 with the lead singer Michael Schiefel. This ten-piece-band performs Nicolai’s orig-inal compositions, mostly songs set on poems by artists like Dorothy Parker, Lord Byron, Thomas Hardy and Ronald D Laing.

Since its formation, ‘the creme of Berlin’s young Jazz scene’ Thaerichen has published four CD’s. Their début Lady Moon (2001) was labelled ‘excel-lent’ by Jazzthing. They have so far

released � ve records and received rave reviews.

The band’s performances are char-acterized by felicitous compositions, polished arrangements and humorous compositions. Speaking about vocalist Michael Schiefel, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said: “Germany has perhaps never had such a jazz singer.”

The concert, organised by Goethe Institut Bangladesh, is free for all. l

Reminiscing HUMAYUN AHMED n Mou Mehzabien Boishakhi

A man may leave the world but the leg-acy he leaves behind is eternal. Huma-yun Ahmed, one of the greatest literary canons of Bangla literature, is no more among us but his creation is still preva-lent.

The truth was evident at the exhibi-tion organised on the 66th birth anniver-sary of the author.

Many of his works, along with rare photographs, manuscripts, paintings and memorabilia, borrowed from his rel-atives friends and well-wishers, are on display at the Nalinikanta Bhattasali Au-

ditorium of the National Museum.The paintings, mainly done in wa-

tercolour, depict natural scenes of wide rivers, open sky and beautiful trees. The eye-arresting paintings unfurl another side of Humayun Ahmed, as an accom-plished painter, to the visitors.

The hand written manuscripts of “Megher Upor Bari,” “Payer Tolay Khorom” and other books expose a rath-er personal side of the writer, bringing him closer to his readers.

However, the images of Humayun Ahmed are the main attraction of the exhibition. Those rare photos show glimpses of the family life of the author.

Humayun Ahmed has been captured with his mother Ayesha Fayez, his broth-ers, Mohammad Zafar Iqbal and Ashan Habib, and also with his children in the photographs. Besides, the images show leisurely moments that he spent in paint-ing, reading books and travelling.

Personal belongings of Humayun Ahmed including the chair he used to sit on while shooting � lms, sunglasses, wrist watches, hats, mu� ers and many more are also on display at the exhibi-tion.

The exhibition, which began on No-vember 13 will continue until November 26. l

NICOLE KIDMAN loves playing the bad girln Entertainment Desk

Nicole Kidman has admitted that she is always happy to play the villain. At the premiere of “Paddington” in central London, the 47-year-old Australian beauty, who plays a sinister taxidermist in the � lm, said as a child too she loved the wicked witch in “The Wizard Of Oz,” so it was obvious that she grew up to be the one who loved playing the bad girl, Sky News reported.

Regarding the � lm’s PG certi� cate, which means some scenes may be unsuitable for young children under the age of eight, the actress, who has two children with husband Keith Urban, in addi-tion to having two with Tom Cruise, said that though she had not seen the � lm, she would be bringing her kids to see it.

The � lm, which has been directed by Paul King, sees Paddington bear sent from the jungle and smuggled on a boat to England. l

KATY PERRY, ONE DIRECTION win at 2014 American Music Awards

One Direction dominated the fan-voted 2014 American Mu-sic Awards, which aired live Sunday night on ABC.

Katy Perry also won three awards – Favorite Female Pop/Rock Artist, Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist and Single of the Year for “Dark Horse” – but two of those awards were not pre-sented on camera, and Katy was not in the house to ac-cept. She sent an acceptance

video from Australia, where she’s currently on tour.

The � ve Brits performed on the show and took home three

trophies, including the most prestigious one, Artist of the Year. Pronouncing the award “so, so cool,” Liam Payne said, “It’s

amazing, because we worked so hard on these last two albums...we spent a lot of time writing the music

and really going down and trying our hardest to really improve

and make the music better and better.”

The group, whose new album “Four” just came out and has already hit #1 on the British charts, also won for Favorite Pop/Rock Band, Duo or Group, and for Favorite Pop/Rock Album, for their previous release, “Midnight Memories.”

Beyonce, who was also not present, won two awards, as did Iggy Azalea, who was. l

JACQUELINE to act opposite John and Varunn Entertainment Desk

Though Jacqueline Fernandez is very excited about doing Hollywood � lms, the actress seems to have no interest in ditching her Bollywood ca-reer. Obviously, after her much popular “Kick” with Salman Khan turned out to be the blockbuster of 2014, Jacqueline seems to be on a roll signing � lms. The actress next will be directed by Rohit Dhawan.

Rohit Dhawan, who is currently helming a two hero project, has decid-ed to rope in Jacqueline Fernandez for his upcoming � lm. The untitled � lm has John Abraham and Rohit’s brother Varun Dhawan in the lead. While this will be the � rst time that Varun will be acting with John and Jacqueline, John and the Sri Lankan beauty have prior to this done � lms like “Race 2” and “Housefull 2.”

Produced by Sajid Nadiadwala, the � lm in question will go on � oor in April 2015. Currently, the actors are busy with their respective projects. While John Abraham is juggling to � nd time between his acting career and production, Varun Dhawan is busy with other � lms which includes “Badlapur” and “ABCD 2.” The actor has also signed the Bollywood re-make of “The Fault In Our Stars” alongside Deepika Padukone. John Abraham will next be seen in “Welcome Back” along with Shruti Haasan and Nishikant Kamat’s “Rocky Handsome.” Apart from that he will also be producing “Agra Ka Daabra,” “1911” and “Satra Ko Shaadi Hai.” l

The cast and crew of ‘Dolls House 2: Shat-ti Tarar Timir’, a new daily soap, were present at its premier at a restaurant in the capital on Sunday. The drama starring popular actors Subarna Mostafa, Moutushi Biswas, Sanjida Preeti, Mousumi Hamid, Swarna, and Intekhab Dinar will be aired on ATN Bangla every Saturday to Tuesday at 10:55pm KHAN HASAN MD RAFI

Singer Rita Ora may soon be enjoying a successful career

as a movie star, and she thanks to her role in “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

Speaking to the OK! magazine, Ora said the huge controversy and inter-est surrounding the � lm has been nothing but good for her acting ambi-tions. “Everyone is going to have his or her own opinions,” she said.

“But for me this was such a great cameo to be involved in, and even though I’m only in it for a little bit, it’s opened the door to a lot of mov-ie things that I haven’t actually an-nounced yet,” she added.

Ora will play Mia, the adopted sister of Christian Grey played by Jamie Dornan, in the highly antici-

pated adaptation of EL James’ world-wide bestseller. Ora, who is a judge on the UK version of “The Voice,” said her role on “Fifty Shades” made her want to act more. “I have the bug, for real. ‘Fifty Shades’ was a moment of cameo and a really good wake-up call. It was nice to be a part of it and it opened a lot of doors.”

Her role in “Fifty Shades” would not be the � rst time she has appeared on the big screen, previously she starred in little seen British gangster � ick “Spivs” from 2004 as well in last year’s “Fast 6” which was predom-inantly shot in Ora’s native London.

“Fifty Shades,” though, is a whole new level of notoriety. “Fifty Shades is going to make a lot of waves, I’ll tell you that much. It’s going to be awesome.” l

RITA ORA: Fifty Shades of Grey role has opened a lot of doors

16 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Modi’s wife enquires about security covern Tribune Desk

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s wife Jashodaben yesterday � led an RTI (right to information) application with Mehsana police to seek clarity on secu-rity cover given to her at present and wanted to know what she is entitled to, reports PTI.

Mehsana Superintendent of Po-lice(SP) JR Mothalia said that Jashoda-ben wants to know what are her rights as PM’s wife as far as the security as-pect is concerned.

“Today, she came to our o� ce and � led an RTI to know about her rights as PM’s wife with regard to security cover. We will give our written reply to her in stipulated time,” said Mothalia.

Jashodaben lives with her brother Ashok Modi at Unjha town of Mehsana district. After Modi was sworn-in as PM, Mehasana police has given her security.

“We have deployed ten of our po-licemen, including armed guards, for her security. They work in two shifts, � ve each in one shift,” said Police In-spector of Mehsana Special Operations Group(SOG) JS Chavda.

In her application, Jashodaben sought several documents from the police de-partment related to her security cover given as per the protocol, including the certi� ed copy of actual order passed by government about providing security. She also wanted to know the laws and related provisions in Indian Constitution about security cover given to a PM’s wife.

She asked the government to ex-plain the de� nition of protocol and sought details about what is included under it and what other bene� ts she is entitled for as per that protocol.

She also expressed unhappiness about the current security set-up, where her guards travel in government vehicles while she has to travel in public transport.

Jashodaben noted that late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was killed by her own bodyguards and that she felt scared of her guards. l

New committee to recommend better use of agri-subsidyThe eight-member committee asked to submit a report in a month’s timen Asif Showkat Kallol

Having failed to pull down crop har-vesting cost despite reducing fertiliser prices several times, the government has formed a specialised committee tasked with recommending better ways to use agricultural subsidy.

Global lender International Mon-etary Fund (IMF), who is providing Bangladesh $1m in several tranches un-der its Extended Credit Facility (ECF), also wants transparency in the agricul-tural subsidy distribution.

A major portion of the government agricultural subsidy goes to the fertiliser importers so that they can sell the inputs at prices lower than their import prices.

However, questions have been raised in recent times regarding how the import-ers have been using the subsidy. There are allegations that some importers have been misappropriating the money given to them using the letters or credit (L/Cs).

A Finance Ministry o� cial told the Dhaka Tribune recently: “Over the last couple of years, the Agriculture Min-istry has reduced input costs several times by giving more subsidies. But that has not had any visible impact on the cost of harvesting crops. So, we need to know why the higher subsidy has failed to reduce harvesting costs.”

Sheikh Badrul Alam, deputy head of the Fertiliser Management and Monitor-ing wing under the Agriculture Ministry, has recently issued a circular announc-ing the formation of the committee.

The eight-member committee, head-ed by an additional secretary of the Agri-culture Ministry, has been asked to sub-mit a report to the minister in one month so that a new policy could be made.

The other members of committee are the chairman of Bangladesh Fertil-iser Association (BFA), joint secretaries of the Finance Division and the Agri-culture Ministry, and representatives of the Department of Agricultural Ex-tension (DAE), Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC), the Foreign Monetary Policy Department

of Bangladesh and Bangladesh Chemi-cal Industries Corporation (BCIC).

According to the Finance Division, during the 2013-14 � scal year, the Agri-culture Ministry used up Tk6,116 crore out of the total Tk9,000 crore allocated for subsidy.

In September 2013, the price of urea was reduced by Tk4 per kg and re-� xed the procurement price of the BCIC at Tk14,000 per tonne.

However, in the � rst three months of the ongoing 2014-15 � scal year, the allo-cation has remained the same but only Tk1,083 crore have been disbursed.

A total of 5,300 members of the BFA distribute non-urea fertiliser across the country. They enjoy nearly 50% sub-sidy on the prices quoted in the L/Cs while importing the inputs, especially from the former Soviet countries.

Agriculture Minister Matia Chowd-hury has recently told Dhaka Tribune: “We are trying to continue reducing the price of agricultural inputs with transpar-ency. That will de� nitely have a positive impact on the cost of harvesting crops. Farmers’ interests should come ahead of the donors’ advices.”

On October 30, with an aim to en-courage the use of non-urea fertilisers, the Agriculture Ministry slashed the price of dominium phosphate (DAP) at the retail level by Tk2. From November 1, DAP is being sold at Tk25 per kilo-gram at the retail level instead of the previous Tk27. Since then, dealers have been purchasing the substance from the importers at Tk23.

The government estimates that the demand for chemical fertiliser will be 5.03 million tonnes in the ongoing 2014-15 � scal year, up against a current reserve of 1.33 million tonnes.

According to the Industries Ministry, around Tk900 crore is drained out of the country every year for importing fer-tiliser at Tk38,589/tonne, although the locally produced inputs are far cheaper – around Tk14,000 per tonne. The gov-ernment has to cover up for the gap by giving heavy subsidy to the importers. l

WB report: High emission can worsen disastersn Tribune Report

A new study report on global warm-ing warns that countries like Bangla-desh are going to face more negative impacts of climate change including more severe droughts, sea-level rise and increasing risk of food and water security, if the current trends of carbon emission continues.

The research report states that with-out combined action, the planet would continue to warm and extreme weath-er events that today occur once in hun-dreds of years could become the “new climate normal,” causing increased risks and instability.

Mexico and Sub-Saharan African countries like Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia would also face similar consequences.

The report titled “4 Degrees Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Cli-mate Normal” prepared by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics for the World Bank Group was released on Sunday.

It says Bangladesh is among the coun-

tries having the risks of increase in pov-erty headcount rate and risks of chronic poverty in di� erent warming scenarios.

A� ected social groups where hun-ger is expected to become prevalent are urban poor groups and urban wage labourers, residents of informal settle-ments and dwellers in rural hotspots.

It would have impact on food prices related to e� ects on productivity, em-ployment and wages related to agricul-ture productivity in countries like Bang-ladesh, the report says.

The warming would cause reduction in availability of clean water supply and sanitation, while worsening � ooding, drought, salt water intrusion, increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events, and population pres-sure, displacement and urbanisation in countries like Bangladesh.

Earlier, the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s � fth assess-ment report on climate change suggest-ed that the governments have to main-stream climate adaptation action into the national development planning, early warning systems and integrated

water resources management, to face the challenge.

Dr Atiq Rahman, executive direc-tor of Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), said Bangladesh had enough policy and documentation on how to take the adaptive measures but “there is lack of proper planning on the development initiatives.”

He suggested that the government consider the vulnerabilities like � ood, cyclone and drought while taking devel-opment projects, otherwise the sectors like agriculture will be a� ected serious-ly which could damage the total food production in the country.

Bangladesh formulated a policy named Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP) in 2009 which directs the detailed plan for all sectors including agriculture, food security and water to reduce the risk of climate change.

Under the policy, the government has formed two funds – Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF) with its own resources and Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BBCRF) with the

contribution of development partners.Regarding the risk of � ood for dam-

aging agriculture sector, the govern-ment has been working to create linkage between disaster and agriculture which would reduce the risk of crops dam-aging, said Mohammad Abdul Wazed, director general of the Department of Disaster Management.

The Planning Commission has direct-ed the ministries to focus disaster issue while taking development projects which would reduce the risk of vulnerability.

However, Wazed said the country should not be worried about the risk of disasters like cyclone and � ood in terms of rescue and rehabilitation as “there is adequate knowledge.”

He also said the government had al-ready incorporated the issue in the Sixth Five Year Plan with an aim to managing negative impacts of disasters.

Ahsan Uddin Ahmed, executive di-rector of Centre for Global Changes (CGC), said the government should also allocate more funds for research pur-pose to develop climate resilient crop varieties. l

Tazreen � re: They still su� er, unnoticed n Nadim Hossain, Savar

When the devastating � re broke out and spread quickly, they found the exit door locked – due to negligence of the factory o� cials. But desperateness to remain alive was so high among them that they did not hesitate to jump o� the building’s windows.

Hence, they escaped death – from su� ocation inside the readymade gar-ment factory building – at the cost of di� erent organs including eyes, hands and legs, and a trauma that haunts them until date.

Over 200 workers, mostly women, sustained injuries in the � re at Tazreen Fashions under Tuba Group at Nish-chintapur of Ashulia on November 24, 2012 when at least 111 were killed – the deadliest factory � re incident in the country.

They only received primary treat-ment, and left in the sea since then, even though they were supposed to get necessary treatment at free of cost.

In the meantime, because of not getting any compensation from the government or the garment owners’ as-sociation BGMEA, their su� erings have doubled.

As the mindset of the authorities has not changed and many injured work-ers lost the ability to join factory work again, the subsequent miseries have not stopped.

Now they are unable to contrib-ute anything in the family expenses whereas earlier they had been the only bread-earners. Financial constraints have also interrupted education of their children and siblings.

On the second anniversary of the fateful incident, several former Taz-reen workers shared their experiences with the Dhaka Tribune about the in-cident and the ordeals they have been facing since then.

Rupa Akter, 20, from Gopalganj was forced to � nd a job after her father had passed away 10 years back when the mother was unable to feed her two daughters and a son from her little earnings as a domestic help.

Working as a sewing operator, she was assisting the family well until the � re incident. On that day, she jumped o� a window on the third � oor of the building along with several other cow-orkers, and sustained severe injuries to the chest and right leg.

Locals took her to a hospital. After several days she was taken to Gopal-ganj and admitted to another hospital.

Rupa told the Dhaka Tribune that since then she had got no � nancial support from the government or the BGMEA. Even though the government had declared to provide free treatment for the injured, she did not get the op-portunity.

Her family had to sell their last piece of land for treatment. Now she has also been refused a job since she lost a leg.

Later she took a small job at a local gro-cery shop.

Her mother has been the only earn-ing member of the family since the � re incident which also forced her to dis-continue the son’s education to save some money to buy foods and medi-cine � rst.

Sewing operator Sabina Khatun, 26, who used to work on the � fth � oor of the factory, jumped o� a window on the third � oor, and her chest and waist bones fractured.

Her treatment cost was met with the money collected from selling land. She is among the unfortunate injured workers who have been denied � nan-cial assistance, compensation and free medical treatment.

For this, she has now become de-

pendent on others’ kindness while her son and daughter’s education stopped.

Sathi, Laily and Muktabanu shared similar shocking experiences claiming that they had not got any � nancial as-sistance since the � re incident.

Shahnaz Begum, 40, worked at Taz-reen Fashions as an operator in the � nishing section. She also jumped o� a window when smoke spread on her � oor. But on the ground, an iron rod pierced her eye and right leg damaged.

She took primary treatment with the Tk1 lakh assistance given by the BGMEA, but had to stop seeing doctor due to lack of money. As the husband also abandoned her, Shahnaz had to send her son and daughter to village home where her sister now looks after them. l

Tazreen � re victims demand compensationn Tribune Report

Ready made garment workers and la-bour leaders yesterday demanded that proper compensation be paid soon to the victims of Tazreen Fashion � re in-cident.

They made the demand at a rally in front of the National Press Club organ-ised to mark the second anniversary of the devastating � re which killed 112 workers and injured over 200 people.

On November 24, 2012, the � re broke out at a factory of Tazreen Fashions in Savar, on the outskirt of the capital.

Family members of the victims and injured workers attended the rally.

The compensation should be provid-ed in line with the convention 121 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the RMG workers’ leaders said.

“Two years have passed since the deadly � re at the Tazreen Fashion. But the victims and their family members have not got their compensation as per the laws,” said Nazma Akter, president of Sammilito Garments Sramik Feder-ation (SGSF). The injured workers are unable to bear the expenses of their treatment. They are facing di� culties to lead their lives, she said.

Demanding arrest of Delowar, the owner of Tazreen Fashion, Bangladesh National Garment Workers Employees League (BNGWEL) President Sirajul Is-lam Rony said if the culprit go unpun-ished it will encourage others to do the same o� ense.

He urged the government to take initiatives to ensure safe workplace for RMG workers so that not a single work-er has to die in factory disaster. l

Survivors, labour leaders and relatives of the Tazreen Fire victims pray at the Jurain graveyard where the unidenti� ed victims of the tragedy were laid to rest two years ago RAJIB DHAR

A rare sight where a postman is taking out letters from a post box. The very few post boxes still standing by the roadside in Dhaka have become archaic due to lack of use. The photo was taken from in front of the DIG Prison Bas Bhaban in the capital yesterday AZAHAR UDDIN

‘The victims and their family members have not got their compensation asper the laws’

N O S TA L G I A , N O W

Editor: Zafar Sobhan, Published and Printed by Kazi Anis Ahmed on behalf of 2A Media Limited at Dainik Shakaler Khabar Publications Limited, 153/7, Tejgaon Industrial Area, Dhaka-1208. Editorial, News & Commercial O� ce: FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Shukrabad, Dhaka 1207. Phone: 9132093-94, Advertising: 9132155, Circulation: 9132282, Fax: News-9132192, e-mail: news@dhakatribune.com, info@dhakatribune.com, Website: www.dhakatribune.com

www.dhakatribune.com/business TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2014

B3 China ready to cut rates again on fears of de� ation

B4 Oil price seen falling to $60 if OPEC does not cut output

Muhith: Issuance of sovereign bond not now n Tribune Report

Finance Minister AMA Muhith yester-day said the government has not de-cided yet to issue sovereign bond to collect fund from global market and would think about it next year.

“The government may think about is-suing sovereign bond next year,” he told journalists, after a meeting with a visit-ing team of US-based leading global � -nancial services � rm and bank JPMorgan Chase & Co, headed by Madhad Kallyan.

The government had taken a plan to issue the bond to collect fund for � -nancing construction of infrastructure in the country.

The team informed the minister about the interest of sovereign bond which is now ranging between 4% and 5%, observing that Bangladesh would not get big � nancial bene� t from issuing the bond in the international market.

“We do not want big fund for con-struction of infrastructure projects as the government has now a good reserve of foreign exchange,” said the minister. l

Dhaka-Kuala Lumpur to sign tourism cooperation dealn Tribune Report

The government is going to sign a contract with Malay-sia to boost bilateral cooper-ation in tourism and hospi-tality sectors.

The deal will be signed in the � rst week of next month during the upcoming visit by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Malaysia.

After the cabinet meeting, Cabinet Secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan yesterday informed the reporters that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasi-na will sign an agreement on tourism during her planned visit to Malaysia in the � rst week of next month.

Presided over by the PM, the cabinet meeting also ap-proved a Memorandum of Understanding on co-oper-ation in the � eld of tourism between the two govern-ments of Bangladesh and Malaysia. Civil aviation and tourism ministry placed the draft MoU before the cabi-net meeting held at the sec-retariat in the capital.

The MoU will initially be signed for � ve years, which can be extended for another � ve years only if both side agree while the contract could also be scraped with a six-month prior-notice, said the Cabinet Secretary Mos-harraf Hossain Bhuiyan. l

14 Basic Bank borrowers disappear with Tk563crn Asif Showkat Kallol

The scam–hit Basic Bank could not trace yet its 14 clients who owe Tk563 crore to the bank.

The bank did not follow regulations like Know-Your-Customer (KYC) before issuing loans either.

Managing Director Khondokar Md Iqbal revealed the misdeeds allegedly conducted by the previous manage-ment at a meeting of � fth parliamen-tary standing committee on Finance Ministry last week.

Basic Bank Chairman Abdur Razzak presided over the meeting.

According to a meeting source, the bank’s � nancial condition deteriorated during a period between 2010 and mid-dle of 2013.

Massive irregularities took place in distributing loans among a number of little-known clients, it said. A total loan of Tk4,236 crore was disbursed among 335 clients.

Of them, the incumbent manage-ment has failed to trace 14 default bor-rowers so far.

“We have found some trace of only four of the 14 default loan customers,” a meeting source quoted Iqbal to have told the meeting.

“The then situation was such that people were collecting money and put-ting them into sacks at night,” the MD was quoted as saying.

The managing director also hinted that former chairman of the bank in collu-sion with the then board of directors gave loan to the 335 clients without proper documents, added the source.

Bank and Financial Institutions Di-vision Secretary Dr Aslam Alam told the Dhaka Tribune the percentage of default loans of the scam-hit Basic Bank is gradually rising in line with the continued investigation on its loan dis-tribution.

He added that now the default loan was 54% of the total loan disbursed by the bank.

“We have already deployed audit � rms to � nd out the default loan of more than Tk1crore given to the clients between 2010 and 2013.”

The parliamentary standing com-mittee has decided to form a separate branch to dispose of loan dispute cases of BASIC and Sonali Bank.

It has also decided to ask the An-ti-Corruption Commission to take tough action against the guilty board members, chairman and MD and other sta� of the bank.

The government in last July dis-solved the infamous board of BASIC Bank over its role in � nancial irregu-larities that cost the state-run lender Tk4,500 crore in the last four years.

The seven-member board of BA-SIC (Bangladesh Small Industries and Commerce) Bank had been dismissed on the basis of the investigation report of the central bank.

Later, Bank and Financial Institu-tions Division appointed new chair-man and MD for the bank. l

Alliance to train RMG security on � re safetyn Tribune Report

The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a platform of the North Amer-ican retailers, has launched a pro-gramme styled “Training of the Train-ers (ToTs)” by providing � re safety training to the factory security guards.

The initiative has been undertak-en to protect the life of RMG workers through safety evacuation and to sup-port emergency evacuation.

The critical need for training came on the spotlight following � re inci-dent at Tazreen Fashions that killed 112 workers as the ill-fated workers were unable to escape from the disastrous � re due to the locked exit doors, said Ian Spaulding, chief executive o� cer of Alliance at a media brie� ng held at his o� ce in the city yesterday.

“Security guards can play a leader-ship role in ensuring safe evacuation during a � re incident by clearing path-ways and exits, supporting � re bri-gades and assisting with worker evac-uation process,” said Ellen Tauscher,

independent chair of the Alliance.“This training will empower factory

guards with knowledge and skills that can ultimately save lives.”

Managing Director of Alliance M Rabin said, “There will have no col-lapsible gate in the RMG factories as through the remediation it would be replaced by � re rated doors by 2015.”

A security guard has to keep in mind three things prevention, protec-tion and evacuation, said workplace � re safety expert David Gold, who de-signed the training curriculum.

Security guards need to be knowl-edgeable, skilled and con� dent in case of � re. The main task of a security guard is to ensure safe evacuation of workers instead of locking the � re ex-its, hearing the � re alarm, he added.

“I am delighted to know about these new safety trainings and practices,” said Sabina, a survivor of the Tazreen � re.

She, however, urged the factory owners and guards not to lock exit doors at any cost during any � re incident.

B3 COLUMN 1

Bangladesh set to buy more IBRD stakes It’s a part of preparation to be eligible for borrowing from the hard-term window as the country will lose eligibility to get soft IDA credit if it becomes middle-income one n Kayes Sohel

The government is set to buy more stakes in the International Bank for Re-construction and Development (IBRD) to make its footing strong and pave the way for ensuring credit after graduat-ing to middle-income country, sources said.

IBRD, one of the � ve arms of the World Bank, lends the middle-income countries to develop infrastructure and support other development activ-ities by raising most of its funds in the world’s � nancial markets.

“The prime minister has already given consent to the plan of raising the stake by purchasing additional 1,364 shares worth $9.87m,” said a high o� -cial at the Economic Relations Division (ERD).

Currently, Bangladesh holds 4,854 shares, which accounts for nearly 0.37% of the IBRD’s total stake.

He said now, the government is pre-paring to hand over money through a formal agreement to be made soon.

Recently, the World Bank’s hard-term lending arm has decided to raise its capital base by proportionately sell-ing 484,102 shares to its 188-member countries in line with the reform plan of the World Bank Group.

Bangladesh is expected to become a middle income nation by 2021 and will lose its eligibility to receive soft-loan support from the international lender.

“At that time, the country will need to get � nancial support from the IBRD too,” said another ERD o� cial.

Bangladesh is one of the biggest borrowing countries of the World Bank Group, as it takes credit worth near-ly $1.2bn every year. Presently, as the low-income country, it borrows from the International Development Associ-ation (IDA), the soft lending arm of the World Bank Group.

The IBRD’s service charge is com-paratively higher than the IDA as it lends at the market rate to the borrow-ing countries.

Established in 1945 as the original institution of the World Bank Group, IBRD is structured like a cooperative that is owned and operated for the ben-e� t of its members.

The income that IBRD has generat-ed over the years has allowed it to fund

development activities and to ensure its � nancial strength, which enables it to lend at low cost and o� er clients good lending terms.

The IBRD’s annual funding volume varies from year to year and it is cur-rently around $10bn-$15bn.

The � ve largest of IBRD’s 188 share-holders are the United States (with 15.02% of the total voting power), Ja-pan (8.13%), China (5.25%), Germany

(4.56%), and France and the United Kingdom (with 4.06% each).

Besides IBRD, Bangladesh has al-ready decided to join the $100bn Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a new lender initiated by the world’s second largest economy, China, to cre-ate opportunity to get � nancial support for its infrastructure development,

It also plans to join another pro-posed global lending institution,

formed by the BRICS nations to spread up scopes for the poor and middle in-come countries, to get more funds for developing their infrastructure and cutting poverty.

Bangladesh needs to spend $100bn by 2020, which is more than 10% of its gross domestic product, to improve its infrastructure to serve its growing pop-ulation, according to the World Bank Report released in April this year. l

A view of an underconstruction � yover in Dhaka. Bangladesh needs to spend $100bn by 2020 to improve its infrastructure to meet the country’s development goals SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

C&A Foundation keen to contribute more for Tazreen victims n Ibrahim Hossain Ovi

In addition to its prior commitment, the C&A Foundation has expressed its willingness to contribute more fund to compensate to the Tazreen victims fairly and fully.

C&A, an international Dutch chain of fashion retail clothing stores, with its European head o� ces in Vilvoorde, Belgium, and Düsseldorf, Germany, has retail stores in many European and Latin-American countries.

After two years of Tazreen Fashion � re incident, an agreement has been reached between IndustriALL Glob-al Union and their local a� liates, the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) and C&A Foundation on a system for de-livering compensation to the victims of the tragedy, said CCC in a statement yesterday.

The pledge came after the tripar-tite consensus on the principles for an agreement to compensate the Tazreen victims following recent negotiations facilitated by the ILO.

The � nal details of the pledge will

be worked out and made public once the cost of the package has been � nal-ised, said the statement.

The C&A has agreed to provide more funds to compensate the victims of Taz-reen Fashion, Roy Ramesh Chandra, secretary general of IndustriALL Bang-ladesh Council told the Dhaka Tribune.

“We are urging all the brands that sourced from Tazreen Fashions to pay into the fund to compensate as per the ILO convention,” he said.

“We are extremely pleased to be able to announce CCC and IndustriALL have reached an outline agreement with C&A on the principles of a com-pensation process and pledged to con-tribute a signi� cant amount towards full and fair compensation for Tazreen victims, in addition to those funds that have already been committed,” said In-eke Zeldenrust of CCC.

The system will be based on the system already developed for the Rana Plaza victims, which covers compen-sation for loss of income, provision of independent medical assessments and ongoing treatment, he said. l

‘We have found some trace of only four of the 14 default loan customers’

B2 Stock Tuesday, November 25, 2014DHAKA TRIBUNE

News, analysis and recent disclosuresICB: The Board of Directors has rec-ommended 45% cash dividend (i.e. Tk. 45.00 per share of Tk. 100.00 each) for the year ended on June 30, 2014. Date of AGM: 20.12.2014, Time: 10:30 AM, Venue: "Jalshaghar", Hotel Purbani International Ltd., 1 Dilkusha C/A, Dhaka-1000. Record Date: 03.12.2014. The Corporation has reported consolidated net pro� t after tax of Tk. 3,605.80 million, consolidated EPS of Tk. 85.47, consolidated NAV per share of Tk. 730.76 and consolidated NOCFPS of Tk. 323.34 for the year ended on June 30, 2014 as against Tk. 3,288.60 million, Tk. 77.95, Tk. 607.74 and Tk. 368.92 re-spectively for the year ended on June 30, 2013. The Corporation has also reported net pro� t after tax of Tk. 3,105.10 million, EPS of Tk. 73.60, NAV per share of Tk. 614.97 and NOCFPS of Tk. 288.15 for the year ended on June 30, 2014 as against Tk. 2,479.10 million, Tk. 58.76, Tk. 500.63 and Tk. 360.79 respectively for the year ended on June 30, 2013.IPO Subscription: C & A Textiles Limited subscription date 09 to 13 November 2014, NRB upto 22 November 2014. @ taka 10, face value taka 10 and market lot 500. IFAD Autos Limited subscription date 23 to 27 November 2014, NRB upto 06 December 2014. @ taka 30, face value taka

10 and market lot 200.Right Share: ICB: Subscription period for rights issue will be from 07.12.2014 to 30.12.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 09.09.2014. BIFC: subscrip-tion period for rights issue of the Company will be from 09.11.2014 to 30.11.2014. Re-cord Date for entitlement of rights share: 19.10.2014. FIRSTSBANK Subscription pe-riod for rights issue will be from 07.12.2014 to 28.12.2014. Record date for entitlement of rights share: 20.11.2014.Dividend/AGMBATBC: 100% interim cash dividend, Record date for entitlement of interim dividend: 03.12.2014.BENGALWTL: 23% cash, AGM: 28.12.2014, Record Date: 02.12.2014.MPETROLEUM: 95% cash and 10% stock, AGM: 16.01.2015, Record date: 04.12.2014. ENVOYTEX: 12% cash and 3% stock dividend, AGM: 24.12.2014, Record date: 02.12.2014. AFTABAUTO: 17% cash, AGM: 24.12.2014, Record date: 30.11.2014.JAMUNAOIL: 90% cash and 10% stock, AGM: 07.02.2015, Record date: 11.12.2014.GEMINISEA: 7.50% cash, AGM: 22.12.2014, Record Date: 08.12.2014. KBPPWBIL: 10% stock, AGM: 29.12.2014, Record Date: 08.12.2014.

RAHIMAFOOD: No dividend, AGM: 24.12.2014, Record Date: 04.12.2014. DACCADYE: 10% stock dividend, AGM: 12.12.2014, Record date: 25.11.2014. ORIONINFU: 15% cash dividend, AGM: 18.12.2014, Record date: 25.11.2014.KOHINOOR: 25% stock dividend, AGM: 18.12.2014, Record date: 25.11.2014.LRGLOBMF1: 5% cash dividend, Record date: 25.11.2014. Earnings per unit of Tk. 0.69.PHARMAID: 25% cash, AGM: 28.12.2014, Record Date: 02.12.2014.TALLUSPIN: No dividend, AGM: 23.12.2014, Record Date: 01.12.2014.MITHUNKNIT: 20% stock, AGM: 23.12.2014, Record date: 20.11.2014.WMSHIPYARD: 5% cash dividend to the general shareholders only, and 10% stock dividend to all the shareholders, AGM: 21.12.2014, Record date: 20.11.2014. PRIMELIFE: 10% cash and 15% stock dividend, AGM: 24.12.2014, Record Date: 20.11.2014.OLYMPIC: 20% cash and 35% stock, AGM: 24.12.2014, Record Date: 27.11.2014.PADMAOIL: 100% cash, AGM: 14.02.2015, Record date: 22.12.2014. EASTRNLUB: 30% cash, AGM: 17.01.2015, Record Date: 25.11.2014.ATLASBANG: 35% cash, AGM: 24.12.2014, Record date: 27.11.2014.

Stocks post steep losses n Tribune Report

Stocks witnessed sharp fall yester-day, extending their losing streak for the third consecutive session.

The market opened red and the negative sentiment continued as days passed.

The benchmark DSEX lost 69 points or 0.6% to close at 4,899, pulled down by all sectors, particu-larly large ones.

The Shariah index DSES dropped 23 points or 2% to 1,110. The com-prising blue chips DS30 ended at 1,753, shedding 32 points or 1.8%.

Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, closed at 9,009 with a fall of 129 points. Trading activities remained sluggish as turnover at DSE stood at Tk350 crore, slightly up 1.7% lower over previous session’s value.

Among the large cap sectors only food and allied witnessed marginal gains of 0.2%, after heavy correc-tion in the previous session.

All other major sectors closed lower with market bellwether tele-communication experiencing a sharp decline of 3.7%, dragged down by the Grameenphone, the country’s top mobile phone operator.

Non-banking � nancial institu-tions also posted sizable loss of over 2%, power 1.9%, pharmaceuticals 1.6% and banks 0.6%.

Scrip wise movements were also focal point as 86 out of 302 traded scrips lost more than 2% of their re-spective price.

IDLC Investments said panic driven selling spree pulled down the market for the third consecutive session, which took another big toll of 69 points in DSEX.

Apparently, it said, investors fo-cused mostly on selling to minimise further loss in their portfolio as mar-ket continued moving toward bear-ish zone.

A total plunge of 565 points with-in last 30 sessions was well enough to shed o� the recent rally. Through-out the session, investors were searching for comfort zone, accord-ing to the IDLC.

Lately, activity got sluggish with average turnover of last two ses-sions was at Tk350 crore level, a decrease of 43.9% from the average turnover of last week, it said.

Lanka Bangla Securities said stocks moved to the downside adding to the losses posted in the previous session. Across all the sectors, small, mid and Large-cap stocks saw the sell-o� throughout the session, but large caps took the hit most, it said.

Lafarge Surma Cement topped the list of turnover leaders with shares worth Tk19 crore changing hands, followed by Square Pharma-ceuticals, Grameenphone, Beximco Pharma, Jamuna Oil, Beximco Ltd and Bangladesh Electrode Dynam-ics Ltd. l

CSE LOSER

Company Closing (% Change)

Aver-age (%

Change)

Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover

in MillionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Prime Islami Life -A -21.04 -20.08 68.30 68.30 68.30 68.30 0.003 4.95 13.8Emerald Oil Ind. -N -9.07 -7.67 40.58 40.10 42.00 40.00 0.873 2.56 15.9Mithun Knitting -A -8.97 -8.08 71.00 71.00 71.00 71.00 0.014 3.40 20.9GSP Finance-A -7.77 -5.58 27.94 27.30 28.80 26.80 0.196 1.59 17.6Takaful Islami Insu-A -7.69 -2.82 26.53 25.20 27.40 25.20 0.040 1.43 18.6 ICB -A -7.50 -6.53 1,426.30 1,411.50 1,430.00 1,411.50 0.357 85.47 16.7Samata LeatheR -Z -6.76 -6.86 19.28 19.30 20.00 18.70 0.087 0.05 385.6Anwar Galvanizing-B -6.30 -4.99 35.07 34.20 35.50 34.20 0.053 0.84 41.86th ICB M F-A -6.27 -6.36 55.25 55.30 55.30 55.20 0.011 16.44 3.4Malek Spinning-A -6.15 -5.73 18.41 18.30 18.70 18.20 0.363 1.84 10.0

DSE LOSER

Company Closing (% Change)

Aver-age (%

Change)

Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover

in MillionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Emerald Oil Ind. -N -10.51 -8.04 40.63 40.00 42.40 39.80 13.265 2.56 15.9Shahjibazar Power-N -8.73 -8.73 235.10 235.10 235.10 235.10 0.470 9.00 26.1Pharma Aids A -6.85 -3.96 276.02 269.20 305.00 266.10 54.018 9.88 27.9Midas Financing-Z -6.76 -6.98 13.87 13.80 14.10 13.80 0.116 -7.00 -veWata Chemicals -A -6.42 -6.27 223.35 218.80 240.00 216.20 7.380 5.37 41.6LafargeS Cement-Z -6.04 -3.99 108.20 105.70 112.10 104.40 192.117 2.43 44.5Apex SpinningA -5.98 -0.93 73.66 72.30 77.50 71.80 11.446 0.86 85.7GSP Finance-A -5.86 -5.43 28.21 27.30 30.00 26.30 25.172 1.59 17.7National Housing Fin.-B -5.84 -4.31 29.78 29.00 32.00 28.70 7.320 1.88 15.8Stylecraft -A -5.74 -5.74 845.00 845.00 850.00 840.00 0.169 44.98 18.8

CSE TURNOVER LEADERS

Company Volume-Shares

Value in Million

% of Total-Turnover ClosingP Change % ClosingY DHIGH DLOW AvgPrice

Khan Brothers-N 375,000 20.01 7.54 53.60 2.10 52.50 55.70 50.10 53.37BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 485,541 19.13 7.21 39.40 2.07 38.60 40.20 38.50 39.39WesternMarine -N 292,900 18.81 7.09 63.70 -2.45 65.30 66.00 62.70 64.24LafargeS Cement-Z 116,000 12.62 4.76 106.50 -5.92 113.20 111.70 106.00 108.82Grameenphone-A 28,800 9.17 3.45 315.80 -4.22 329.70 327.00 313.10 318.27MJL BD Ltd.-A 67,137 8.69 3.27 125.90 -2.10 128.60 131.70 125.30 129.37Square Pharma -A 34,178 8.64 3.26 251.80 -2.37 257.90 258.00 250.00 252.87Beximco Pharma -A 135,199 8.46 3.19 62.10 2.48 60.60 64.20 61.70 62.61SAIF Powertec-N 110,600 7.80 2.94 70.80 4.89 67.50 72.40 67.50 70.50 Argon Denims Limited-A 105,083 4.71 1.77 44.40 0.91 44.00 45.80 43.40 44.80Khulna Printing-N 163,500 4.44 1.67 26.90 -0.37 27.00 27.90 26.60 27.16The Peninsula CTG.-N 129,400 3.91 1.47 30.10 -1.31 30.50 30.80 30.00 30.23Appollo Ispat CL -N 176,800 3.82 1.44 21.30 -2.74 21.90 21.90 21.30 21.59Dacca Dyeing-A 219,000 3.73 1.41 17.10 0.59 17.00 17.70 16.90 17.05Keya Cosmetics -A 135,500 3.73 1.41 27.20 -2.16 27.80 28.00 27.10 27.53

DSE TURNOVER LEADERS

Company Volume-Shares

Value in Million

% of Total-Turnover ClosingP Change

% ClosingY DHIGH DLOW Avg-Price

LafargeS Cement-Z 1,775,500 192.12 5.42 105.70 -6.04 112.50 112.10 104.40 108.20Square Pharma -A 673,151 170.11 4.79 251.20 -2.52 257.70 260.00 236.00 252.71Grameenphone-A 527,800 168.47 4.75 316.70 -3.71 328.90 328.10 315.20 319.20Beximco Pharma -A 2,469,738 154.63 4.36 62.10 2.48 60.60 64.10 55.00 62.61Jamuna Oil -A 479,984 121.29 3.42 250.30 -2.80 257.50 258.00 240.00 252.69BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 2,949,496 116.37 3.28 39.50 2.33 38.60 40.30 35.00 39.45Barakatullah E. D.-A 3,044,781 112.27 3.16 36.80 -2.13 37.60 38.00 34.00 36.87Khan Brothers-N 1,892,500 101.08 2.85 53.50 1.33 52.80 55.90 51.10 53.41WesternMarine -N 1,421,500 91.52 2.58 63.90 -1.39 64.80 66.30 62.70 64.38Meghna Petroleum -A 238,536 59.92 1.69 251.10 -1.41 254.70 255.00 233.00 251.19MJL BD Ltd.-A 441,822 56.23 1.59 125.30 -3.32 129.60 130.50 116.70 127.28Titas Gas TDCLA 684,382 55.13 1.55 80.40 -0.86 81.10 81.40 77.00 80.55JMI Syringes MDL-A 264,500 54.97 1.55 205.10 -5.35 216.70 222.70 198.00 207.82Pharma Aids A 195,700 54.02 1.52 269.20 -6.85 289.00 305.00 266.10 276.02 Argon Denims Limited-A 1,085,388 48.81 1.38 44.60 1.13 44.10 48.00 40.00 44.97

SECTORAL TURNOVER SUMMARY

Sector DSE CSE TotalMillion Taka % change Million Taka % change Million Taka % change

Bank 287.62 8.11 17.81 6.23 305.43 7.97NBFI 152.74 4.31 8.12 2.84 160.85 4.20Investment 32.90 0.93 2.11 0.74 35.01 0.91Engineering 458.45 12.92 43.16 15.09 501.61 13.08Food & Allied 115.37 3.25 7.00 2.45 122.37 3.19Fuel & Power 567.48 16.00 28.73 10.05 596.20 15.55Jute 33.28 0.94 0.00 33.28 0.87Textile 232.38 6.55 29.19 10.21 261.57 6.82Pharma & Chemical 685.50 19.32 39.95 13.97 725.44 18.92Paper & Packaging 33.35 10.72 3.75 44.06 1.15Service 84.20 2.37 9.89 3.46 94.09 2.45Leather 15.98 0.45 6.40 2.24 22.38 0.58Ceramic 26.50 0.75 3.87 1.35 30.37 0.79Cement 232.87 6.56 15.08 5.27 247.95 6.47Information Technology 21.41 0.60 1.55 0.54 22.95 0.60General Insurance 49.26 1.39 0.50 0.17 49.76 1.30Life Insurance 39.73 1.12 1.85 0.65 41.58 1.08Telecom 183.71 5.18 10.99 3.84 194.70 5.08Travel & Leisure 43.29 1.22 7.05 2.47 50.35 1.31Miscellaneous 251.60 7.09 42.02 14.69 293.61 7.66Debenture 0.17 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.17 0.00

Weekly capital market highlightsDSE Broad Index : 4768.90172 (-) 1.43% ▼

DSE - 30 Index : 1753.05211 (-) 1.80% ▼

CSE All Share Index: 14714.29960 (-) 1.64% ▼

CSE - 30 Index : 12127.68050 (-) 1.30% ▼

CSE Selected Index : 9009.23240 (-) 1.42% ▼

DSE key features November 24, 2014Turnover (Million Taka)

3,547.77

Turnover (Volume)

77,245,364

Number of Contract 82,977

Traded Issues 303

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

49

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

247

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

7

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,530.57

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

30.67

CSE key features November 24, 2014Turnover (Million Taka) 268.30

Turnover (Volume) 7,156,100

Number of Contract 11,274

Traded Issues 218

Issue Gain (Avg. Price Basis)

28

Issue Loss (Avg. Price Basis)

181

Unchanged Issue (Avg. Price Basis)

8

Market Capital Equity (Billion. Tk.)

2,451.43

Market Capital Equity (Billion US$)

29.71

Prepared exclusively for Dhaka Tribune by Business Information Automation Service Line (BIASL), on the basis of information collected from daily stock quotations and audited reports of the listed companies. High level of caution has been taken to collect and present the above information and data. The publisher will not take any responsibility if any body uses this information and data for his/her investment decision. For any query please email to biasl@bol-online.com or call 01552153562 or go to www.biasl.net

Panic driven selling spree pulled down the market for the third consecutive session, which took another big toll of 69 points in DSEX

CSE GAINER

Company Closing (% Change)

Aver-age (%

Change)

Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover

in MillionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Alltex Industries -Z 9.83 5.95 18.88 19.00 19.00 17.80 1.274 3.28 5.8Aziz PipesZ 6.79 6.79 17.30 17.30 17.30 17.30 0.006 -0.37 -veNitol Insurance -A 5.08 5.08 31.00 31.00 31.00 31.00 0.031 2.79 11.1SAIF Powertec-N 4.89 1.41 70.50 70.80 72.40 67.50 7.797 2.36 29.9SonarBangla Insu. -A 3.83 5.15 19.00 19.00 19.00 19.00 0.019 1.77 10.7Provati Insur.-A 2.50 1.95 20.36 20.50 21.00 19.90 0.151 1.97 10.3Beximco Pharma -A 2.48 2.02 62.61 62.10 64.20 61.70 8.465 4.19 14.9BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 2.07 1.65 39.39 39.40 40.20 38.50 19.126 1.01 39.0ISN Ltd. -Z 1.90 0.29 10.53 10.70 10.70 10.50 0.037 0.13 81.0Power Grid Co. -A 1.74 1.79 40.86 40.90 41.30 40.50 0.266 1.04 39.3

DSE GAINER

Company Closing (% Change)

Aver-age (%

Change)

Closin-gAvg. Closing DHIGH DLOW Turnover

in MillionLatest

EPSLatest

PE

Alltex Industries -Z 8.09 6.42 18.73 18.70 19.00 17.30 11.603 3.28 5.7ICB AMCL 1st NRB -A 5.88 5.88 23.40 23.40 23.40 23.40 0.023 3.24 7.2Monno Sta� lers -A 5.02 4.19 308.74 313.60 315.60 290.00 2.331 1.17 263.9SAIF Powertec-N 4.85 0.79 70.55 71.30 72.30 67.10 44.703 2.36 29.9Kohinoor Chem -A 4.11 3.99 433.00 433.40 433.90 433.00 0.433 10.40 41.6GeminiSeaFood-Z 3.59 5.03 205.31 202.10 210.50 195.00 0.735 1.39 147.7Progressive Life-A 2.79 2.94 95.91 95.80 97.10 93.50 1.103 2.30 41.7Beximco Pharma -A 2.48 2.45 62.61 62.10 64.10 55.00 154.633 4.19 14.9BEXIMCO Ltd. -A 2.33 1.49 39.45 39.50 40.30 35.00 116.369 1.01 39.1Envoy Textiles Ltd-N 2.25 0.67 53.83 54.50 55.80 49.00 15.830 2.21 24.4

ANALYST

Stocks moved to the downside adding to the losses posted in the previous session

B3BusinessDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, November 25, 2014

China ready to cut rates again on fears of de� ation n Reuters, Beijing

China’s leadership and central bank are ready to cut interest rates again and also loosen lending restrictions, con-cerned that falling prices could trigger a surge in debt defaults, business failures and job losses, said sources involved in policy-making.

Friday’s surprise cut in rates, the � rst in more than two years, re� ects a change of course by Beijing and the central bank, which had persisted with modest stimulus measures before � -nally deciding last week that a bold monetary policy step was required to stabilize the world’s second-largest economy.

Economic growth has slowed to 7.3% in the third quarter and policy-makers feared it was on the verge of dipping below 7% - a rate not seen since the global � nancial crisis. Producer prices, charged at the factory gate, have been falling for almost three years, pil-ing pressure on manufacturers, and consumer in� ation is also weak. “Top leaders have changed their views,” said a senior economist at a government think-tank involved in internal policy discussions.

The economist, who declined to be named, said the People’s Bank of China had shifted its focus toward broad-based stimulus and were open to more rate cuts as well as a cut to the banking industry’s reserve requirement ratio (RRR), which e� ectively restricts the amount of capi-tal available to fund loans.

China cut the RRR for some banks this year but has not announced a banking-wide reduction in the ratio since May 2012.

“Further interest rate cuts should be in the pipeline as we have entered into a rate-cut cycle and RRR cuts are also likely,” the think-tank’s economist said.

Friday’s move, which cut one-year benchmark lending rates by 40 basis points to 5.6 percent, also arose from concerns that local governments are struggling to manage high debt bur-dens amidst reforms to their funding arrangements, the sources said.

The cut helped send Asian shares broadly higher on Monday. The CSI300 Index of the largest companies listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen opened up 1.2% at its highest level since June 2013, while the Shanghai Composite Index opened up 0.8%.

Top Chinese leaders had been resist-ing a rate cut, fearing it could fuel debt and property bubbles and dent their reformist credentials, but were even-

tually swayed by signs of deteriorating growth as the property sector cooled. Until then, they had persisted with targeted policy steps, such as cuts in reserve ratios for selected banks and liquidity injections into the banking system. But these failed to bring down borrowing costs for the corporate sec-tor. “Increasing liquidity by the central bank has failed to lower borrowing costs for the real economy,” said a for-

mer central bank researcher who now works for the government.

“Employment still holds up, but cor-porate pro� ts have been squeezed as producer price de� ation bites, and it’s unreasonable for banks to have hefty pro� ts.”

Calls for bolder action Many Chinese economists had been calling for bolder policy actions, as re-

cent data showed the economy losing more steam in the fourth quarter and consumer price in� ation falling. Full-year growth is on track to undershoot the government’s 7.5% target and mark the weakest expansion in 24 years.

“GDP growth is near 7% which is at a dangerous level given it could still go even lower due to structural reforms,” said Li Xunlei, chief economist at Hai-tong Securities.

“The rate cut helped boost con� -dence in next year’s growth outlook,” said Li, who was among economists who discussed policy issues with Pre-mier Li Keqiang at a recent cabinet ses-sion.

Government think-tanks, which make policy proposals, have urged Bei-jing to cut its economic growth target next year, probably to around 7%, from around 7.5% this year.

The leadership is due to map out economic and reform plans for 2015 at a work conference next month, includ-ing economic targets which will be un-veiled in parliament next March.

Worries over employment China’s leaders also worried that a sharp economic slowdown could hurt employment and undermine public support for reforms.

“Employment still holds up now, but it will de� nitely be a� ected if growth slows further,” said Yin Zhongli, senior economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a top government think-tank.

The central bank does not have the � nal word on adjusting interest rates or the value of the yuan. The basic course of monetary and currency policy is set by the State Council, China’s cabinet, or by the Communist Party’s ruling Po-litburo.

Beijing wants to push some pain-ful reforms next year, including � scal reforms to deal with a mountain of local government debt, and the risk of pushing local governments into de-faults could be o� set by lower interest rates. Some policy insiders said the rate cut was also in� uenced by talks at this month’s summit of the G20 group of nations, which pledged to boost � ag-ging global growth.

China, which will host the G20 sum-mit in 2016, is keen to maintain its in� uence as a major driver of global growth. “China is keen to play a bigger role within G20 and it needs to main-tain relatively fast economic growth,” said Zhao Xijun, an in� uential econo-mist at Renmin University. l

A vegetable vendor holds a stack of Chinese yuan banknotes at a morning market in Shenyang REUTERS

Euro struggles in Asia on ECB chief’s comments n AFP, Singapore

The euro struggled in Asian trade yes-terday after being hammered late last week in response to comments from the European Central Bank (ECB) chief hinting at further stimulus measures to fend o� de� ation.

The single currency was at 146.19 yen in afternoon trading, slightly up from the 145.91 yen recorded in late London trade Friday but well o� the 147.81 yen in Asia earlier that day.

It also tumbled to $1.2398 from $1.2405 in London and was sharply down from $1.2553 Friday in Tokyo. The dollar bought 117.91 yen against 117.63 yen late Friday.

“In� ation remains the key variable for the euro,” banking group ANZ said in a note, adding that “there is little expecta-tion in a change to de� ationary pressures that will cap the topside” of the currency.

ECB head Mario Draghi on Friday said at a banking congress that the cen-tral bank “will use all means available to us, within our mandate, to return in� ation towards our objective - and without any undue delay”.

Among the measures being consid-ered are the large-scale purchase of government bonds - known as quan-titative easing - similar to that under-taken by the Bank of Japan and re-cently wound down by the US Federal Reserve.

The ECB is struggling to � ght o� de-� ation in the currency bloc, with in� a-tion currently at just 0.4%, well below the bank’s target of 2% .

Singapore’s United Overseas Bank (UOB) said it expects the euro to weak-en further.

“The unexpected sharp drop last Friday indicates that a temporary top is in place... the immediate pressure is

on the downside and the current weak-ness could extend towards the strong support at 1.2290 before a rebound can be expected,” it said.

ANZ also said the recession in Japan and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s call for a snap election would keep the yen under pressure, having already fallen to a more than seven-year low against the dollar.

The dollar eased against most Asia-Paci� c currencies.

It fell to 44.94 Philippine pesos from 45.06 on Friday, to 32.786 Thai baht from 32.79, to 12,125 Indonesian rupiah from 12,138.90, to 61.7337 Indian rupee from 61.84, to 1,113.16 South Korean won from 1,113.76 and to Tw$30.9140 from Tw$30.92.

The greenback advanced to Sg$1.2995 from Sg$1.2988.

The Australian dollar gained at 86.87 US cents from 86.15 and the Chinese yuan fell to 19.2164 yen from 19.25. l

Robi net pro� t falls 9%n Muhammad Zahidul Islam

The net pro� t of mobile phone opera-tor, Robi, fell by 9% in the third quarter of the current year in comparison with the same quarter last year.

The company reported that its net pro� t stood at Tk130 crore.

At the same time, its gross revenue also fell 1% in comparison with the pre-vious quarter.

The second largest operator in terms of revenues, Robi, revealed its � nancial disclosures to the journalists at a press conference yesterday.

The cellphone company said the negative pro� t trend was due to am-ortisation of debt arising from large capital investment to support the third generation (3G) business, licence ac-quisition and the country-wide rapid network roll-out.

About the revenue fall, it said de-spite strong growth in subscribers, quarter to quarter revenues decreased marginally by 1% to Tk1,210 crore mainly due to lower voice revenues

whilst data revenues recorded a growth of 31% driven by an increased adoption of Robi data services.

“We are not disappointed about the balance shit though our revenues de-clined,” Supun Weerasinghe, managing director and chief executive o� cer of Robi said, replying to a question.

Robi, however, said its third quarter earning is 14.6% higher compared to the preceding quarter this year due to income from data business through 3G.

The CEO said: “We see a good growth in data services since the beginning of the year as we have expanded our 3.5G network across the country.”

The company is investing signi� -cantly towards expanding its 3.5G net-work across the country and to boost growth in data usage, he added.

“Given the slow growth in voice revenues, imposition of an additional surcharge on customer talk time may further hinder voice revenue growth.”

Weerasinghe said recently the oper-ator has covered all 64 districts across the country with its 3G network. l

Bangladesh Brand Forum in partnership with a research company, Millward Brown Bangladesh has recently held 6th Best Brand Award Bangladesh 2014 at a hotel in Dhaka

SM Spinning Mills Limited, a sister concern of SM Group of Companies has recently taken an initiative to produce yarn using most advanced ring spinning technology. Eastern Bank Ltd was the mandated lead arranger and agent, jointly with BRAC Bank Limited for a syndication loan of $34.28m. The group’s MD, Syed AK Anwaruzzaman was present on the occasion

Modhumoti Bank Limited has recently held the 20th meeting of its executive committee. The meeting was presided over by the committee’s chairperson, Barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh

Square Pharmaceuticals Ltd has recently held its annual sales and marketing conference at a hotel in Cox’s Bazar. The chairperson of Square Group, Samuel S Chowdhury was present on the occasion

BBS Cables Ltd has recently held the 3rd dealer conference in Dhaka. The company’s MD, Engr Abu Noman Howlader was present at the conference among others

Marcel has recently opened its exclusive showroom at Dayarampur Bazar, Bagatipara in Notore. The company’s brand ambassador, � lm actor, Amin Khan has inaugurated the showroom

Alliance to train B1 COLUMN 2The course materials have been de-signed in line with the NFPA Standard for Security Services in Fire Loss Pre-vention and are currently being accred-ited through the Institution of Occupa-tional Safety and Health (IOSH).

The safety training programme will be implemented through a third-party trainers and security guard company, who has been specially quali� ed will conduct the training.

Elite Force, Security Link, G4S, Se-curex and Shohag Security service will be included in the training process.

To complement the security guard training, factory managers will also participate in shorter sessions to build awareness and support for the role of security guards in protecting workers.

Meanwhile, the Alliance is organizing the 2nd Expo on Building and Fire Safety, on December 7-9 to connect RMG factory owners with vendors of life-saving equipments like � re doors, sprinkler systems and � re alarms necessary for factory remediation. l

B4 Back PageDHAKA TRIBUNE Tuesday, November 25, 2014

DILBERT

German business con� dence stabilises in November n AFP, Frankfurt

Business con� dence in Germany appears to be stabilising after long months of de-cline, with the Ifo business climate index rising in November for the � rst time in seven months, data showed on Monday.

In an encouraging sign for Europe’s biggest economy, and therefore the eurozone as a whole, the closely watched barometer beat expectations and rose to 104.7 points in November from 103.2 points in October, the Ifo think-tank said in a statement.

“The downturn in the German economy has ground to a halt for the moment at least,” Ifo chief Hans-Werner Sinn said in a statement. Ifo calculates its headline index on the basis of companies’ assessments of current business and the outlook for the next six months.

“Assessments of the current business situation are slightly more favourable than last month,” Sinn said.

“Expectations with regard to the months ahead are also brighter.”

The sub-index measuring current business rose to 110.0 points from 108.4 points last month, while the outlook sub-index increased by 1.4 points to 99.7 points.

Analysts were encouraged by the turnaround in the index, especially after investor sentiment in Germany rose for the � rst time this year in November.

“After a six-month slide, German busi-ness con� dence staged a strong rebound in November, illustrating that any swan songs on the eurozone’s biggest economy came too early,” said ING DiBa economist Carsten Brzeski.

“In our view, the Ifo index is currently the best single leading indicator for the German economy. Therefore, today’s Ifo reading gives clear comfort for our view of an accelerating economy in the � nal quarter of the year,” he said.

Uncertainty still high Capital Economics economist Jennifer McKeown said the rise in the Ifo index “is a relief after falls in other survey indicators, but it still points to only slow growth.”

“The fall in the euro and easing con-cerns over geo-political factors are starting to have some positive e� ects,” she said, but noted that the November increase only reversed the fall seen in the previous month.

“In all, the survey provides tentative evidence that the recovery should slowly resume after the stagnation around the middle of the year. But with growth too slow to generate in� ation or provide a boost to the rest of the eurozone, poli-cymakers will remain under pressure to o� er more support,” McKeown said.

Postbank economist Thilo Heidrich was also cautious. l

Oil price seen falling to $60 if OPEC does not cut output n Reuters, London

Oil prices could plunge to $60 a barrel if OPEC does not agree a signi� cant out-put cut when it meets in Vienna this week, market players say.

Brent crude futures have fallen 34% since June to touch a four-year low of $76.76 a barrel on Nov 14, and could tumble further if OPEC does not agree to cut at least 1 million barrels per day (bpd), commodity fund managers say.

“The market would question the credibility of OPEC and its in� uence on global oil markets if there was no cut,” said Daniel Bathe, of Lupus alpha Com-modity Invest Fund.

That could send Brent down to around $60, Bathe said.

“Herding behaviour and a shift to net negative speculative positions should accelerate the price plunge,” he added.

Fund managers are divided over whether OPEC will reach an agreement on cutting output. Bathe put the likeli-hood at no more than 50%.

The oil price has been falling since the summer due to abundant supply - partly from US shale oil - and low demand growth, particularly in Europe and Asia.

As a result, some investors believe

a small cut - of around 500,000 bpd - would not be enough to calm the mar-kets. Doug King, chief investment o� -cer of RCMA Capital, sees Brent falling to $70, even with a cut of 1 million bpd.

If OPEC fails to agree a cut, prices will drop “further and quite quickly”, with US crude possibly sliding to $60, he said. US crude closed at $76.51 on Friday, with Brent just above $80.

'Oil war' With member states struggling to bal-ance budgets, many OPEC countries will be pushing for an output cut.

“Prices below $80 are putting sig-ni� cant strain on the cartel’s weak-est members such as Venezuela,” said Nicolas Robin, a commodities fund manager at Threadneedle.

He said a bigger cut - of 1 million bpd or more - was an “outlier scenario”, but such a move would rapidly push prices above $85.

“A move higher would likely be ac-celerated by the lack of liquidity owing to the U S (Thanksgiving) holiday next week,” Robin added.

Doug Hepworth of Gresham Invest-ment Management said: “A surprise signi� cant cut, say of 2 million bpd, is

needed to push prices back up to $80. And that would have to be accompa-nied by some new-found discipline in the non-Saudi members.”

The market has been awash with conspiracy theories as to why Saudi Arabia has not already intervened. New York Times columnist Thomas Fried-man hinted at “a global oil war under way pitting the United States and Saudi Arabia on one side against Russia and Iran on the other.”

Tom Nelson, of Investec Global En-ergy Fund, said Saudi Arabia had al-lowed the price to fall to incentivise the smaller OPEC producers, which often rely on the biggest producer to inter-vene, to join Riyadh in cutting output.

“They (the Saudis) want to cut but they don’t want to cut alone,” Nelson said, adding that a cut of between 1 mil-lion and 1.5 million bpd should be suf-� cient to balance the market.

“The market really wants to see that OPEC is still functioning ... if there is a small cut, with an accompanying state-ment of coherence from OPEC that presents a united front, and talks about seeing demand recovery, and some moderation of supply growth, then Brent could move up to $80-$90.” l Pump Jacks are seen at sunrise near Bakers� eld, California REUTERS

France, Germany to present joint economic reform paper n AFP, Berlin

Germany and France are set to present a joint economic reform paper Thurs-day that proposes Paris would freeze wages and Berlin would hike public in-vestment, a news report said.

Paris stressed that the proposals to be presented to both countries’ econ-omy ministers Thursday is not govern-ment policy but merely “a report by two economists”.

Under the proposals, France would make its labour rules, including the 35-hour week, more � exible in many sectors and seek to freeze wages for three years to make companies more competitive, reported Der Spiegel news weekly on Sunday.

Germany would also double its infra-structure spending to 20bn euros ($25bn ) by 2018, and the fast-ageing country would reform immigration rules and do more to get women into the workforce, according to the Spiegel report.

The road map plan for Europe’s two

biggest economies will be presented Thursday in Paris to German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.

It is based on a government-com-missioned study by Henrik Enderlein, head of the Jacques Delors Institute in Berlin, and Jean Pisani-Ferry, chief economic strategist of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, said Der Spiegel.

A spokeswoman for the French economy ministry told AFP on Sun-day that the plan does not represent proposals by the French and German governments but is “a report by two economists”.

“This report is not � nalised so it cannot be commented on at this stage,” she added.

The proposals in the paper would represent a compromise between Berlin, which has long preached � scal discipline in the crisis-hit EU, and Paris, which is grappling with high unemployment and a ballooning budget de� cit and has been urging more stimulus spending. l

Global stocks grind higher after central bank stimulus signals n Reuters, London

World stock markets ground their way higher yesterday after a frenetic round of activity at central banks in Asia and Europe showed they are willing to do more to support economic growth and higher in� ation.

European shares, which had their best day in a month on Friday after the People’s Bank of China cut interest rates, edged higher still on Monday af-ter sources told Reuters at the weekend Beijing was ready to ease policy further to head o� slowing in� ation.

European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi also looked to be clearing the way for the full-scale government bond buying widely hoped for by � nancial market investors but opposed by Ger-

many’s Bundesbank. Germany’s in� uential Ifo survey

gave a more upbeat vision of business sentiment than some other data in the past month, boding better for growth but potentially complicating the policy picture.

Jean-Louis Cussac, the head of Par-is-based � rm Perceval Finance, said the market was currently driven by central banks.

“Fund managers have not been selling equities during the recent pull-backs because of the ‘ECB put’: if the situation worsens, the central bank is ready to take further steps,” he said. “The market remains volatile, and in-vestors should be cautious.”

Shares in Shanghai hit three-year highs as the prospect of further policy

stimulus in China and Europe whetted risk appetite globally. The euro stead-ied after nearing 28-month lows.

The Shanghai Composite Index rose almost 2% more on Monday, while MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Paci� c shares outside Japan jumped 1.1%. To-kyo was closed for a holiday.

“China’s rate cut adds to the deter-mination of global policy makers to avoid de� ation and support growth,” said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy at fund manager AMP Capital in Sydney.

“While U.S. quantitative easing may have ended, it’s being replaced by QE in Japan and Europe and rate cuts in China,” he added. “This in turn augurs well for shares and other growth assets.” l

Russia to lose some $40bn a year due to sanctions n AFP, Moscow

Russia is set to lose around $40bn (32bn euros) per year due to Western sanc-tions over the Ukraine con� ict, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Monday.

“We are losing around $40bn per year due to geopolitical sanctions and we are losing some $90 to $100bn per year due to oil prices falling 30%,” Si-luanov said in a speech at an economic forum in Moscow, quoted by RIA No-vosti news agency.

Sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States on Russia’s economy, which is largely dependent on exports of raw materials, block its access to international capital markets and also to technology.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lav-rov on Saturday accused the West of at-tempting to achieve “regime change” in Russia through sanctions that aim to destroy the economy and rouse public protests.

President Vladimir Putin suggested Sunday that Russia could experience “catastrophic consequences” from sanctions, the falling oil price and the plunging ruble, while arguing that these would have knock-on e� ects for other countries.

“The modern world is interdepen-dent. It’s far from guaranteed that sanctions, the steep fall in oil prices and the loss of value of the national currency will lead to negative results or catastrophic consequences only for us,” Putin warned in an interview with TASS news agency.

Putin denied he has � nancial links to the Russian o� cials and business-men from his inner circle who are tar-geted by Western sanctions blacklists.

He said to impose sanctions on those individuals in an attempt to get to him was an approach based on a “false premise.”

Putin suggested that falling oil prices were due to “targeted steps by our part-ners on the world energy market.” l

US fund boards go on high alert around bond liquidity n Reuters, New York

US fund � rms are taking extra mea-sures to make sure they don’t get stuck holding hard-to-sell b onds in the event that � xed income markets see a mas-sive race to the exits when interest rates start to rise.

Over the past few months a grow-ing number of asset managers, includ-ing Neuberger Berman, Natixis Global Management and T Rowe Price have been testing their funds against various market scenarios, building cushions of cash, shorter-duration bonds and other liquid securities, and regularly discuss-ing risks with their boards.

The concern is this: As the Federal Reserve begins to raise rates, which many expect will begin to happen next year, investors will rush to sell bonds as their value drops in a rising inter-est rate environment. Historically Wall Street banks have been the buyers of these bonds, but regulations and capi-tal requirements imposed since the � -nancial crisis have forced these � rms to slash their inventories.

“I look around and ask ‘at the end of the day how easy would it be to sell what I own?’, and the answer is it is much more challenging,” said Jason

Brady, a � xed income portfolio manager at Sante Fe, New Mexico-based Thorn-burg Investment Management, which has $70bn in assets under management, $17bn of which is in � xed income.

Wall Street’s biggest banks don’t be-lieve the Fed will raise rates until the middle of next year at the earliest. In a survey taken in early October, 14 of the 19 primary dealers, or the banks that deal directly with the Fed, said they expect the � rst rate hike by June 2015, with borrowing costs rising to 1 percent at the end of that year.

But fund managers say they are al-

ready seeing signs of it getting harder to buy and sell bonds.

Many managers were spooked in mid-October, when the yield on 10-year Treasury notes fell quickly to 1.865 per-cent, their lowest level since May 2013.

“When all of a sudden the most liq-uid market out there isn’t liquid, it’s worrisome,” Brady said.

Buffers Thornburg and T. Rowe are among a number of � rms that have increased their allocations to cash to provide their portfolios with a bu� er in the

case of a liquidity crunch. Thorn-burg’s $1.3bn Strategic Income Fund has increased its allocation to cash to 13% from 10% last year and has also increased its holdings in shorter-dura-tion bonds and high grade investment debt, Brady said.

T Rowe’s High Yield Fund has 3% in cash, up from 1% a year ago, said Mark Vaselkiv, manager of the fund.

Instead of cash, Natixis has built up a reserve of as much as 20 %in some of its mutual funds in higher quality, non-US securities, such as bonds denominated in Australian and Canadian dollars, said David La� erty, chief market strategist at Natixis. As of September 30, Natixis had $894.3bn in assets under manage-ment and its subsidiary, Boston-based Loomis Sayles & Co, had $223.2bn.

Firms, like New York-based Voya Investment Management, which uses third party managers to subadvise its funds, now give high-yield bond man-agers up to three days notice before it makes big redemptions out of those funds to make sure they can get the money in an orderly and timely fash-ion, said Paul Zemsky, CIO of multi-asset strategies at Voya, speaking on Tuesday at the Reuters Global Invest-ment Outlook Summit in New York. l

The logo of French bank Natixis is seen outside one of their o� ces in Paris REUTERS

A member of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) walks under the solar panels at the roof deck of a mall in Manila on November 24, 2014. The 5,760 solar panels have been installed on the roof deck of the multi-level carpark of SM City mall. Renewable energy resources like solar energy operate with zero carbon dioxide emissions can help mitigate climate change and promote cleaner air AFP